Margolin, Julij
MARGOLIN, JULIJ
MARGOLIN, JULIJ (1900–1971), Israeli publicist, writing in Hebrew and Russian. Born in Pinsk (Belorussia), the son of a physician, Margolin spent his youth there and in the Ukraine. After World War i, he studied philosophy in Berlin. In 1936 he settled in Tel Aviv with his family and worked as a writer and journalist. However, when on a private visit to Poland in the summer of 1939, he was arrested by the advancing Russians after the outbreak of World War ii and sentenced to five years in labor camps for alleged infringement of passport regulations. Margolin wrote three works in the labor camps: The Theory of the Lie, The Doctrine of Hate, and On Liberty, but they were discovered during a search of his effects before his release and were destroyed.
After his return to Ereẓ Israel in 1947, Margolin wrote a factual account of his horrifying experiences; this was one of the most detailed reports published until then on conditions in Soviet labor camps. The book first appeared in a French translation under the title La Condition Inhumaine, and later in New York in the Russian original, and in 1968 in a German edition.
In Israel, Margolin worked for various periodicals. He founded an Israel Association of Former Prisoners of Soviet Labor Camps and during his last years he was involved in various activities in support of Jewish emigration from Soviet Russia. He also wrote A Tale of Millenia: A Condensed History of the Jewish People, which appeared posthumously with a foreword by Michael Zand.
bibliography:
E. Gottgetreu, in: Allgemeine Juedische Wochenzeitung (Feb. 12, 1972); H. Reichmann, To the Memory of a Friend (Russian, 1971).
[Erich Gottgetreu (2nd ed.)]