Looped metal whip that may have been used at Auschwitz given to a Ukrainian journalist covering the Nuremberg Trials

Miroslav Hrijoriev Gregory was born on April 26, 1911, in Kamenetz Podilskyj, Russia (Kamianets Podilsky, Ukraine). In the early 1930s, Miroslav received a degree in political science from the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kiev. He was a socialist and openly opposed Soviet communism. Miroslav was a journalist and an illustrator, as well as a member of the Ukrainian press. In the mid-1930s, he fled to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he continued to write. His wife Eugenia was born on November 18, 1907, and was a doctor. In 1940, their son Miroslav Hrijoriev (Fred) Gregory was born. In September 1938, Germany occupied the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia. In March 1939, Germany invaded the Czechoslovakian provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, where Prague was located. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Miroslav continued to write as a Ukrainian journalist in exile during the war, publishing anti-Nazi papers using various pseudonyms. In 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo for his father’s anti-Nazi activities. With assistance from an underground Czech organization, Miroslav escaped, and likely went into hiding. Miroslav continued illustrating books, and worked on the costume and set designs for the first Ukrainian production of Hamlet, which was performed in 1944, at the Lviv Opera House. In 1945, Miroslav and his family were arrested and transported to a slave labor camp in Blauson (?), Germany, as punishment for his earlier escape from the Gestapo. In spring 1945, Miroslav and his family were liberated by US soldiers. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. The family was transferred to Augsburg displaced persons camp in the American occupied zone of southern Germany. Eugenia worked as a camp doctor. The Allied powers, Great Britain, France, Soviet Union, and United States, had agreed to try as war criminals those responsible for the mass murder of European Jewry. On November 20, 1945, the Allies began prosecuting leading German officials before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, which was located in the same state, Bavaria, as Augsburg. As a Ukrainian journalist in exile, Miroslav had many social and political connections with individuals involved in the Nuremberg Trials. He covered the proceedings as a journalist and occasionally acted as a translator. He attended the proceedings of at least one trial, from January to April 1947. In mid-1947, Miroslav, Eugenia, and their son were granted visas for the United States. They emigrated from Germany, and lived in New York. In approximately 1949, the couple had a daughter. In the early 1950s, the family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland. During the 1950s and 1960s, Miroslav worked as a broadcaster and translator for The Voice of America. He also worked as a freelance illustrator for the Washington Post and other organizations. In the mid-1970s, Miroslav retired from the Voice of America. Eugenia, age 90, died on July 5, 1998. Miroslav, age 89, died on June 6, 2000, in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The whip was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2013 by Christine Cox, the daughter of Miroslav Hrijoriev Gregory.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Christine Cox

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.