I am very grateful to all my colleagues and friends who provided me with information, identified sources, made critical notes, discussed or edited the text and found materials and photos in Moscow archives:
Dr. Vadim Altskan (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, USA), Professor John Q. Barrett (St. John’s University in New York City, USA), Ms. Susanne Berger (Washington, USA), Professor Jeffrey Burds (Northeastern University, Boston, USA), Professor Emil Draitser (Hunter College, New York, USA), Dr. Hildrun Glass (Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany), Dr. Andreas Hilger (Helmut-Schmidt-University of the Federal Armed Forces, Hamburg, Germany), Mr. Sergei Gitman (Moscow, Russia), Mr. Tony Hiss (New York, USA), Dr. Amy Knight (Summit, New Jersey, USA), Dr. Craig G. McKay (Uppsala, Sweden), Dr. Michael Parrish (Indiana University, Indiana, USA), Dr. Nikita Petrov and Mr. Arsenii Roginsky (Memorial Society, Moscow, Russia), and, finally, Ms. Lovice Ullein-Reviczky (Antal Ullein-Reviczky Foundation, Hungary).
I am also grateful to Dr. Karl Spalcke (Bonn, Germany) for sharing with me some details of his terrifying experience of growing up in a Lefortovo Prison cell in Moscow, where he was put together with his mother and spent 6 years of his life, from 13 through 19 years old.
I am also very thankful to my cousin, Anna Birstein (Moscow, Russia), for her permission to use the famous Soviet poster created by my aunt, Nina Vatolina, in June 1941, just after the Nazi invasion. The design of the cover of this book is based on a famous WWII poster depicting a Russian woman’s head with a finger at her lips emblazoned with the motto “Don’t chatter!”
Finally, I am extremely indebted to my wife, Kathryn Birstein, for her constant support and interest in my research work as well as her extensive editorial assistance. Without her, this book would not have been possible.