White Nights (book)
Encyclopedia
White Nights is an autobiographical memoir by Menachem Begin
, the sixth Prime Minister of Israel, describing his imprisonment in the Soviet gulag labour camps during 1940-1942. The book was first published in Hebrew in 1957 and has been available in English translation since 1977.
Apart from a forceful description of the author's own harrowing experiences in the camps, the book contains various astute observations on the real-life operation of the Soviet system and the psychology of some of its minions.
When the book first came out, it was doubted by some whether Begin really could dare to so boldly express his Zionist worldview to the interrogators under the pressure of the "interrogation" he underwent in the Soviet prison. However, N.K.V.D. documents subsequently published after the end of the Cold War have substantiated his account of the affair.
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
, the sixth Prime Minister of Israel, describing his imprisonment in the Soviet gulag labour camps during 1940-1942. The book was first published in Hebrew in 1957 and has been available in English translation since 1977.
Apart from a forceful description of the author's own harrowing experiences in the camps, the book contains various astute observations on the real-life operation of the Soviet system and the psychology of some of its minions.
When the book first came out, it was doubted by some whether Begin really could dare to so boldly express his Zionist worldview to the interrogators under the pressure of the "interrogation" he underwent in the Soviet prison. However, N.K.V.D. documents subsequently published after the end of the Cold War have substantiated his account of the affair.