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WHITE NIGHTS, Menachem Begin’s memoir of his arrest, interrogation and imprisonment by the Soviet authorities after the outbreak of World War II, ranks with House of the Dead and Gulag Archipelago as a masterpiece of prison literature.
As the head of Betar, the Zionist youth movement founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky, Begin knew he was under constant surveillance. He watched as his associates either fled or were arrested, but continued his activities until the knock on the door came and he was taken to Lushiki fortress. There he was starved and kept sleepless for days while interrogators tried to get him acknowledge that Zionism was an anti-Soviet nationalist movement that was engaging in espionage on behalf of the British. He resisted and would only sign a document acknowledging his participation in Zionist activities. Unable to break him the Soviets sentenced him to eight years in a Siberian labor camp. In a miraculous stroke of good fortune he was a liberated along with thousands of Polish prisoners to serve in the Polish Army. Amazingly, he was sent with the Anders battalion to fight in Palestine where he was later allowed to join his compatriots in the struggle for the Jewish homeland.
Begin offers a detailed description of life in the camps, the suffering, the prisoners, the mentality of the jailers, the efforts of the totalitarian system to degrade the human spirit. When the book was published, critics and opponents accused Begin of inflating his heroic role, saying no one could have so stubbornly proclaimed his Zionist beliefs in the face of such torture and deprivation. But with the dissolution of the Soviet Union prison files came to light containing transcriptions of his interrogations. Begin’s version of events was vindicated. His conviction and courage were confirmed.
This edition includes excerpts from the NKVD interrogation files which, for the first time, were translated from the Russian into English
As the head of Betar, the Zionist youth movement founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky, Begin knew he was under constant surveillance. He watched as his associates either fled or were arrested, but continued his activities until the knock on the door came and he was taken to Lushiki fortress. There he was starved and kept sleepless for days while interrogators tried to get him acknowledge that Zionism was an anti-Soviet nationalist movement that was engaging in espionage on behalf of the British. He resisted and would only sign a document acknowledging his participation in Zionist activities. Unable to break him the Soviets sentenced him to eight years in a Siberian labor camp. In a miraculous stroke of good fortune he was a liberated along with thousands of Polish prisoners to serve in the Polish Army. Amazingly, he was sent with the Anders battalion to fight in Palestine where he was later allowed to join his compatriots in the struggle for the Jewish homeland.
Begin offers a detailed description of life in the camps, the suffering, the prisoners, the mentality of the jailers, the efforts of the totalitarian system to degrade the human spirit. When the book was published, critics and opponents accused Begin of inflating his heroic role, saying no one could have so stubbornly proclaimed his Zionist beliefs in the face of such torture and deprivation. But with the dissolution of the Soviet Union prison files came to light containing transcriptions of his interrogations. Begin’s version of events was vindicated. His conviction and courage were confirmed.
This edition includes excerpts from the NKVD interrogation files which, for the first time, were translated from the Russian into English
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Menachem Begin
15 books12 followersRussian-Israeli politician Menachem Begin from 1943 led Irgun, the Zionist underground movement in Palestine, until the establishment in 1948 and afterward, known for his hard-line views on the Arabs, as prime minister from 1977 to 1983 strove to resolve the conflict and shared the Nobel Prize for peace of 1978 with Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt.
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat shared the Nobel Prize of 1978 for peace with Menachem Begin, Israeli prime minister, for negotiations that led to a treaty of 1979.
Menachem Begin founded Likud. He, considered among most extraordinary individuals, played a key role in the creation of the state and served sixth.
Family of young Begin fled the Nazis. He escaped to Vilna and headed revisionist youth of Betar. People arrested him in 1940 and detained him in Lukiskes prison under the false assumption that he spied for Britain. Interrogated and tortured, he stayed in prison until May 1942 and then joined the army of Władysław Anders of Poland. Sent at some later time, he joined and quickly headed the Jewish nationals.
Defense forces of Israel captured the Sinai peninsula in the six-day war. In most significant achievement, Begin signed a treaty in 1979. In the wake of the Camp David accords, the forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight strongholds of Palestine Liberation Organization and thus ignited the war.
The death Aliza Begin, his wife, in November 1982 depressed him, who gradually withdrew from public life until his resignation in October 1983.
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat shared the Nobel Prize of 1978 for peace with Menachem Begin, Israeli prime minister, for negotiations that led to a treaty of 1979.
Menachem Begin founded Likud. He, considered among most extraordinary individuals, played a key role in the creation of the state and served sixth.
Family of young Begin fled the Nazis. He escaped to Vilna and headed revisionist youth of Betar. People arrested him in 1940 and detained him in Lukiskes prison under the false assumption that he spied for Britain. Interrogated and tortured, he stayed in prison until May 1942 and then joined the army of Władysław Anders of Poland. Sent at some later time, he joined and quickly headed the Jewish nationals.
Defense forces of Israel captured the Sinai peninsula in the six-day war. In most significant achievement, Begin signed a treaty in 1979. In the wake of the Camp David accords, the forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight strongholds of Palestine Liberation Organization and thus ignited the war.
The death Aliza Begin, his wife, in November 1982 depressed him, who gradually withdrew from public life until his resignation in October 1983.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 19, 2020
Told with cool, incisive prose, White Nights is Begin’s own harrowing account of his 1940-1941 detention by the Soviet Union’s NKVD. Decisively, it is a memoir, the first of Begin's two (the other is about Etzel's revolt against the British Mandate), though interspersed throughout is also some political analysis of the Soviet Union's tyrannical regime and the culture of abject fear it engendered in its population.
I read this text after I was inspired by Yehuda Avner's depiction of the great Jewish leader in The Prime Ministers, as one instilled with a keen sense of "Jewish history and Jewish destiny." Begin's emphasis on hadar----Jewish pride, royalty, politeness, honor-----in addition to his insistence on self-defense and the use of force to restore a Jewish national homeland in the Land of Israel---intrigued me. Who was this political leader, grown up scrawny and short in Brisk, Poland, who led the Etzel's underground's revolt in British Palestine, spearheaded the Israeli government's opposition for almost 30 years, struck peace as Prime Minister with Sadat in Egypt in 1979 --- more than any previous administration could accomplish --- and whose legacy for unashamed Jewish pride reverberates unto this day?
I wanted to start an investigation. Who was this man with iron-clad Zionist resolve, the head of Beitar Poland, the eloquent orator who followed Jabotinsky's Revisionist rejection of the labor and socialist Zionist establishment only to overtake his mentor in implementing his ideals? Why haven't American Jews really heard so much of him? In the English-speaking world, why does his name seem to have been relegated to the annals of history? As the leader of the Opposition for many years in Israel, why did he connect more with the Mizrachi constituency that the Ashkenazi one, given his bona fides?
They say that if you want to learn about someone, you need to visit their roots. Certainly to understand Begin's political ambitions, we must first understand his Zionist upbringing, by Ze'ev Dov and Chasia Begin, alongside his two younger siblings Rachel and Herzl. Then we would look to his jump -- by the instruction of his father -- to switch from the Zionist-socialist HaShomer HaTzair youth organization to Beitar, one spearheaded by Jabotinsky and more supportive of physical Jewish self-defense. Then we would continue to analyze Begin's rise through Beitar, eventually becoming Poland's head of the organization, and look at his detention by the NKVD, marriage to Aliza Begin, aliyah to Israel, underground fighting against the British, a more. Begin had a very full life indeed.
But White Nights isn't about all that. Without an ounce of self-pity, it's simply about his detention and interrogation in the enormous NKVD machine. In short, Begin was detained in 1940 in Vilna, and brought in for questioning at the Lukiskes Prison, where he stayed some time. Eventually he was transferred North, to the northern Russian tundra, where temperatures routinely reached many degrees below zero, where he performed hard labor carrying iron and building railway tracks, until Hitler broke his blood-pact with Stalin in 1941, the Soviets allied with the Poles, and all Polish POWs were henceforth released.
This is the story, and Begin writes it with a certain wit and matter-of-fact tone that makes the reader wonder just how the prisoner maintained his sense of humor throughout all the terrible frostbite and hunger and thirst and sleepless nights. But he did nonetheless, and as readers we benefit from his strength and courage.
Overall, Begin's memoir gave me an incredible appreciation for his struggle and his constant, unabashed hope in liberation. His moral strength and clarity, which he maintained in the face of Soviet interrogators, even at the cost of sleep, food, and human interaction -- was inspiring indeed. Begin was willing to die for his ideal. In one incident, after many long "white" nights of questioning, Begin is asked to sign a page "admitting" that he was "guilty" of "having been the chairman of the Betar organization in Poland."
In an astonishing display of nerve, Begin refuses to sign. He insists that the citizen-interrogator cross out the word "guilty," reading instead that "I admit that I was the chairman..." For the interrogator, the words are one in the same, and eventually he relents. But to Begin, hadar -- Jewish dignity and pride -- are everything.
In a word, we might say that it was Begin's sincerity (ok, and imagination/vision) that captured a generation of hopeless Jews to return to Israel and fight for independence. In White Nights, Begin's sincerity is on full display. With humility and deference to the Jewish tradition, Begin viewed himself not as an individual leader but one link in the 200+ generation Jewish chain stretching back to Abraham. In many ways, I believe that he derived his strength and pride from the greatness of the Jewish tradition.
And, concluding the memoir, Begin gives us a window into the pleasure he experienced during the birth of the State of Israel ---- when he announced as much to his thousands of Etzel members who had been tirelessly waging war...
It was more than a "haha, I told you so" to all the Soviet interrogators who had told him that he would never live to see a Jewish state, who told him he would die in the transit camp on the banks of the Pechora, freeze to death as a nameless bunch of bones in the white snow...it was more than that...
In a word, this was redemption.
I read this text after I was inspired by Yehuda Avner's depiction of the great Jewish leader in The Prime Ministers, as one instilled with a keen sense of "Jewish history and Jewish destiny." Begin's emphasis on hadar----Jewish pride, royalty, politeness, honor-----in addition to his insistence on self-defense and the use of force to restore a Jewish national homeland in the Land of Israel---intrigued me. Who was this political leader, grown up scrawny and short in Brisk, Poland, who led the Etzel's underground's revolt in British Palestine, spearheaded the Israeli government's opposition for almost 30 years, struck peace as Prime Minister with Sadat in Egypt in 1979 --- more than any previous administration could accomplish --- and whose legacy for unashamed Jewish pride reverberates unto this day?
I wanted to start an investigation. Who was this man with iron-clad Zionist resolve, the head of Beitar Poland, the eloquent orator who followed Jabotinsky's Revisionist rejection of the labor and socialist Zionist establishment only to overtake his mentor in implementing his ideals? Why haven't American Jews really heard so much of him? In the English-speaking world, why does his name seem to have been relegated to the annals of history? As the leader of the Opposition for many years in Israel, why did he connect more with the Mizrachi constituency that the Ashkenazi one, given his bona fides?
They say that if you want to learn about someone, you need to visit their roots. Certainly to understand Begin's political ambitions, we must first understand his Zionist upbringing, by Ze'ev Dov and Chasia Begin, alongside his two younger siblings Rachel and Herzl. Then we would look to his jump -- by the instruction of his father -- to switch from the Zionist-socialist HaShomer HaTzair youth organization to Beitar, one spearheaded by Jabotinsky and more supportive of physical Jewish self-defense. Then we would continue to analyze Begin's rise through Beitar, eventually becoming Poland's head of the organization, and look at his detention by the NKVD, marriage to Aliza Begin, aliyah to Israel, underground fighting against the British, a more. Begin had a very full life indeed.
But White Nights isn't about all that. Without an ounce of self-pity, it's simply about his detention and interrogation in the enormous NKVD machine. In short, Begin was detained in 1940 in Vilna, and brought in for questioning at the Lukiskes Prison, where he stayed some time. Eventually he was transferred North, to the northern Russian tundra, where temperatures routinely reached many degrees below zero, where he performed hard labor carrying iron and building railway tracks, until Hitler broke his blood-pact with Stalin in 1941, the Soviets allied with the Poles, and all Polish POWs were henceforth released.
This is the story, and Begin writes it with a certain wit and matter-of-fact tone that makes the reader wonder just how the prisoner maintained his sense of humor throughout all the terrible frostbite and hunger and thirst and sleepless nights. But he did nonetheless, and as readers we benefit from his strength and courage.
Overall, Begin's memoir gave me an incredible appreciation for his struggle and his constant, unabashed hope in liberation. His moral strength and clarity, which he maintained in the face of Soviet interrogators, even at the cost of sleep, food, and human interaction -- was inspiring indeed. Begin was willing to die for his ideal. In one incident, after many long "white" nights of questioning, Begin is asked to sign a page "admitting" that he was "guilty" of "having been the chairman of the Betar organization in Poland."
In an astonishing display of nerve, Begin refuses to sign. He insists that the citizen-interrogator cross out the word "guilty," reading instead that "I admit that I was the chairman..." For the interrogator, the words are one in the same, and eventually he relents. But to Begin, hadar -- Jewish dignity and pride -- are everything.
In a word, we might say that it was Begin's sincerity (ok, and imagination/vision) that captured a generation of hopeless Jews to return to Israel and fight for independence. In White Nights, Begin's sincerity is on full display. With humility and deference to the Jewish tradition, Begin viewed himself not as an individual leader but one link in the 200+ generation Jewish chain stretching back to Abraham. In many ways, I believe that he derived his strength and pride from the greatness of the Jewish tradition.
And, concluding the memoir, Begin gives us a window into the pleasure he experienced during the birth of the State of Israel ---- when he announced as much to his thousands of Etzel members who had been tirelessly waging war...
It was more than a "haha, I told you so" to all the Soviet interrogators who had told him that he would never live to see a Jewish state, who told him he would die in the transit camp on the banks of the Pechora, freeze to death as a nameless bunch of bones in the white snow...it was more than that...
In a word, this was redemption.
May 15, 2023
4.33 stars
A very well-written book.
A very well-written book.
January 24, 2018
A very valuable read. Not the 'life-changing' book that it was promised to be by the person who recommended it to me, but still worth it. Great as a good overview/personal history, but it could have been more descriptive if it was aiming to educate re. Soviet history.
July 27, 2017
Recounts his Russian internment. Fascinating read. Brave man.
March 26, 2018
Superb
This is as penetrating and vivid as Ivan Denisov. moving depiction of Stalinist terror by Israeli hero and Prime Minister
This is as penetrating and vivid as Ivan Denisov. moving depiction of Stalinist terror by Israeli hero and Prime Minister
April 10, 2019
Helped me understand Begin and his development into the person and leader he became. To be honest it is plodding but worth it.
December 30, 2022
Excellent Informative
January 14, 2014
Интересно. Иврит несколько устаревший, но быстро привыкаешь, читается легко. Бегин описывает историю своего ареста, заключение и допросы в вильнюсской тюрьме НКВД, а затем несколько месяцев в ПечорЛаге.
Я несколько месяцев назад перечитывал Солженицына, очень схожие описания - но при этом он смотрит на все глазами варшавского интеллигента, и этот взгляд на Гулаг "со стороны" очень интересен.
Порадовали многочисленные вкрапления русских терминов ивритскими буквами - "урки", "доходяга", "бригадир".
В конце книги дано общее описание жизни в СССР, какой он ее увидел после освобождения - нехватка продовольствия, очереди за всем - и как нормальная реакция человека, который видит очередь, - спросить "что дают" и встать в хвост. Я это и из 80-х годов помню.
Я несколько месяцев назад перечитывал Солженицына, очень схожие описания - но при этом он смотрит на все глазами варшавского интеллигента, и этот взгляд на Гулаг "со стороны" очень интересен.
Порадовали многочисленные вкрапления русских терминов ивритскими буквами - "урки", "доходяга", "бригадир".
В конце книги дано общее описание жизни в СССР, какой он ее увидел после освобождения - нехватка продовольствия, очереди за всем - и как нормальная реакция человека, который видит очередь, - спросить "что дают" и встать в хвост. Я это и из 80-х годов помню.
October 27, 2008
I really found this book very insightful. I haven't read much about the Soviet prison camps- just the Nazi ones. It is so sad what human beings can do to each other. I wish I had more of an understanding of all the politics involved between all the countries and leaders at the time. The ending of the book left me a little unsatisfied because it doesn't say how he eventually gets to Israel or if he is reunited with his wife. I would have also loved to hear what ended up happening to the different people you meet throughout the book.
December 5, 2016
Amazing book about the unknown story of Menahem begin in the Soviet camps.
In his youth Begin was arrested by the Russian authorities as a Zionist leader, he was sent his jail. This testimony is well written, highly fascinating and shows the strengths of idealism for the young Jewish leader.
In his youth Begin was arrested by the Russian authorities as a Zionist leader, he was sent his jail. This testimony is well written, highly fascinating and shows the strengths of idealism for the young Jewish leader.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews