Letters of Jewish writer Isaak Nukhimovich Kipnis from Gulag

Isaak Nukhimovich Kipnis (1894-1974) was a prominent Soviet Jewish writer, member of the Union of Ukrainian writers. He was arrested in 1949 and accused of the “Nationalist ( Zionist) and Anti-Soviet activities”. The main evidence incriminated against Kipnis were his literary activities before and after WWII, especially his short article “ On khokhmes, on kheshiboynes” published in 1947 in the Polish Yiddish newspaper “ Naye Lebn” where he suggested that Soviet Jews have to proudly wear Yellow Stars next to the military decorations received on the battle fields. Isaak Kipnis’s works has been widely published before his arrest in the Soviet Union and recently in Israel and USA.

Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Source of acquisition is the Instytut i︠u︡daïky (Judaica Institute), Kyiv, Ukraine. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the collection from the Judaica Institute via the United States Holocaust Museum International Archives Project in Jan. 2011 and accretion in June 2017.