In the early 1990s, one could often see an elderly street cleaner on the streets of Ramat Gan, working with remarkable diligence and enthusiasm. A newly arrived immigrant, he spoke Hebrew surprisingly well.

Nukhim Berger, already in his late eighties, worked not only for money. He regarded laboring on the Land of Israel as a sacred duty for every committed Zionist. Never complaining about the scorching sun, he often criticized the sabras for having completely forgotten the slogan “Avoda Ivrit” (“Jewish labor”), which had once emphasized the blood-bond between the Jewish people and Eretz Israel. His supervisor was an Arab, and all the nearby construction sites were staffed exclusively by foreign workers. That was not how the pre-war Zionists had imagined the future of the Jewish state.

Nukhim Berger began dreaming of Eretz Israel back in his childhood, in the village of Komarovtsy in the Vinnytsia region. In that Ukrainian village, a hundred meters from the railway line, once stood his father’s house. His father, David Berger, was a small-scale trader, and the family could hardly be called well-off.

During World War I and the ensuing battles for Ukraine, the Bergers saw nearly every warring faction appear on their doorstep. The Whites, the Petliurists, the Reds, and the Poles all came, each demanding the same thing from David Berger — to feed them and serve homemade vodka. Refusal could lead to immediate violence, and the various armies seemed to compete in the scale and brutality of their anti-Jewish pogroms.

Growing up in such conditions, young Nusik Berger understood early on that without a country of their own, the Jews had no future. After finishing heder (religious elementary school) and learning the craft of a shoemaker, he decided that, come what may, he would reach Eretz Israel. At sixteen, Nusik left his parents to pursue his dream. He departed Komarovtsy not alone but with a group of like-minded young Zionists. Having joined the “national,” or “right-wing,” branch of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair (“The Young Guard”) founded in 1924, the comrades began preparing for their resettlement in Palestine.

The Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair cells that existed in Eastern European towns — and even in small Ukrainian shtetls — were directly subordinate to the central committee of the right-wing Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair, known as the Gdud (“Battalion”). The Gdud, operating in Moscow, was replenished with the most devoted and steadfast shomrim, delegated by local cells for special training as future leaders of the movement.

Sociable by nature and gifted at talking to and persuading people, Nukhim Berger also found himself in Moscow. There, like other members of the Moscow Gdud, he lived in a commune. These communal residences were mostly located in the Moscow suburbs — in Lyubertsy, Odintsovo, and Kuntsevo. Each shomer was required to master a practical trade and continue studying so that upon arrival in Palestine he could become a skilled builder of the Jewish state. Nukhim Berger, like many of his comrades, decided to become a laborer and took a job as a molder at a foundry in Lyubertsy.

Part of the commune members’ earnings went to the common cause. These funds, among other things, supported those Zionists who, due to GPU pressure, were unable to find work or were forced to live underground.

After grueling work shifts, the young Zionists usually held political classes, listened to lectures about Eretz Israel, and organized cultural events. In time, when an activist who had completed Gdud training proved capable of carrying out underground work, he was assigned to expand the movement in other areas.

In the spring of 1931, Nukhim Berger left Moscow for Odessa. The young foundry worker at the Agricultural Machinery Plant named after the October Revolution only outwardly resembled a Komsomol member — in his free time, he engaged in anything but Bolshevik propaganda.

On April 13, 1931, officers of the Odessa GPU, led by an agent named Talisman, burst into Berger’s apartment. The underground activist’s residence was located at 23 Pishonovskaya Street, near Dyukovsky Garden. Nukhim Davidovich was at home. Witnesses to the search were his neighbor Shkolnik and a housing committee representative named Brodskaia.

A search began in the apartment immediately. After some time, the Chekist officer Talisman, grinning with satisfaction, laid out on the table the evidence found in Berger’s possession: information bulletins from the Zionist Labor Party and the HeHalutz organization, a brochure about agriculture in Palestine, reports, and correspondence. Also discovered were books that eloquently testified to the owner’s anti-Soviet sentiments — To the Zionists by Figovsky, In a Soviet Prison by Solomon Broide, The Erfurt Program by Kautsky, and Talmudic Morality by Isaac Varshavsky. No less suspicious was the large number of documents under other people’s names found in Berger’s home. After searching Nukhim Davidovich’s residence, the Chekists took him to the well-known building on Marzaliyevskaya Street, which housed the Secret Political Department (SPO) of the Odessa GPU.

There was no point in Berger denying his membership in the right-wing branch of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair. The Zionist materials found in his apartment spoke for themselves. But the main issue was that the First Division of the SPO GPU, responsible for intelligence and operational work, was clearly acting on a tip. It was extremely difficult for the shomrim (members of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair) to compete with the First Division — the secret police had agents everywhere. Often these were former shomrim activists with impeccable reputations who had not withstood the Chekists’ pressure and blackmail.

“In which parties are you a member?” asked the GPU officer Talisman as he filled out the interrogation form.
“I have been a member of the Zionist organization Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair since 1927.”
“The right wing?”
“Yes, the right wing.”

Having admitted his affiliation with the organization, Berger nevertheless did not reveal his true place of birth, presenting himself as a native of Nizhyn. In reality, he had joined Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair and the hachshara (training group for emigration to Palestine) two years earlier, in 1925, when the Zionist youth movement in small towns was flourishing. He listed his sister Khana, who indeed lived in Moscow, but also added a fictitious “brother Israel,” who never existed. Sometimes arrested Zionists managed to mislead investigators by providing false information — even serving their sentences under assumed names.

When it came to the actual charges, the arrested Zionist refused to cooperate. He told Talisman literally the following:
“I refuse to give any further testimony, particularly concerning my activities as a member of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair.”
A few days later, on April 17, 1931, Nukhim Davidovich was summoned for another interrogation. This time, the GPU officer decided to approach the case from a different angle:
“What can you tell the investigation about Avraham Shoikhet?”
Abrasha Shoikhet, a native of the Ukrainian town of Kupel, had in 1930 been part of the same group as Berger within the Moscow Gdud (battalion), where movement leaders were trained. Shoikhet had also arrived in Odessa, which the Chekists soon learned, forcing him to remain in hiding.

“Think carefully,” pressed Talisman, “and also recall your associate Motya Shuster.”
The man hiding under the pseudonym Motyl Shuster was actually Buzya Tepelbaum (Topelboim), another shomer whose trail had been discovered by the GPU. But the prisoner remained silent:
“I refuse to give any testimony. I do not know Motya Shuster or Avraham Shoikhet and have no idea who they are.”

The other names presented to him, Berger insisted, he was hearing for the first time. The only exceptions were Joseph Polyansky and Riva Shkolnik — relatives of his neighbor, Froim Shkolnik.

The situation with the documents found in Berger’s possession looked bad. The military ID was issued to one Nachman Kapzan, while the birth certificates and other papers bore the names of Sarah Pulner and Moisey Garber. According to Berger, they were his friends who had emigrated to Palestine.

“They left the documents with me before their departure,” he claimed — but among those who had sailed from the port of Odessa in April 1931, no such people were listed.

His explanation for another certificate, under the name Binshtok, was equally unconvincing: he allegedly found it near a newly built factory kitchen in Blizhniye Melnitsy. The experienced Talisman had seen such fake documents before — they were often used by shomrim for underground work.

“The Zionist literature found in my possession belongs to me, and I refuse to state where I obtained it,” said the young man. While the mere possession of books could perhaps be explained away, the Zionist organization bulletins discovered in his apartment clearly indicated that he had been involved in distributing such materials. The most recent issue of the Zionist Labor Party (STP) information bulletin was dated March 1931 — just shortly before Berger’s arrest.

On July 7, 1931, while held in the Odessa Central House of Forced Labor (DOPR), Nukhim Davidovich underwent a medical examination. Chief physician Yudelevich and doctors Borshchevsky and Shtivelman found him to be anemic and suffering from a catarrh of the upper lungs — an early sign of tuberculosis — but nevertheless declared him fit for administrative exile. The Soviet authorities exiled even the very elderly to the farthest ends of the country, let alone a 21-year-old young man.

In August 1931, in a report addressed to the regional prosecutor, officer Talisman summarized the information held on the accused in the Odessa GPU’s operational sector. The Chekists knew that he had arrived from Moscow with the goal of re-establishing the right-wing Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair cell that had previously been destroyed. Taking a job as a menial laborer at a factory, Nukhim Davidovich, together with the chief “district functionary” Buzya Tepelbaum, rebuilt the cell, recruiting former members of the organization.

When Tepelbaum left Odessa for Moscow — where he was soon arrested — Nukhim Davidovich effectively became the head of the right-wing Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair in Odessa. Leading the local group, he regularly held meetings at which members studied specialized literature and the tactical methods of the organization.

“Summing up the [agent — the word is crossed out several times in the document] and investigative materials, it becomes entirely clear that in the person of Berger we have an active member of a counterrevolutionary organization, who in no way wishes to disarm before Soviet power, even when caught red-handed,” wrote Talisman in his report, asserting that Berger’s anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda — qualifying under Article 54-10 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR — were fully proven.

In the early 1930s, the Chekists often relied on a completely unlawful decree of the USSR Central Executive Committee dated March 28, 1924, which allowed them to send people into exile without proper trial.

Eventually, the investigation file on Nukhim Berger was submitted to the Special Council attached to the Collegium of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR. On September 28, 1931, the Council ruled:

“To release Berger Nukhim Davidovich from custody, prohibiting residence in Ukraine, the Moscow and Leningrad regions, the North Caucasus Territory, and the border regions for a term of three years.”

In Moscow, at the Collegium of the OGPU of the USSR itself, on November 3, 1931, the sentence was specified further: Berger was to be exiled to Kazakhstan.

Nukhim Berger was sent into exile in Chimkent. Finding work in the Kazakh town — flooded with political exiles — was nearly impossible, so Berger was forced to learn a new profession: bookkeeping. A position as an accountant opened up in the office of the Chimkent branch of “Zagotzerno” (the State Grain Procurement Agency).

In Kazakhstan, he met his future wife — Malka Zamvelyevna Esrig. Malka was from Kupel. Along with her brother Shlomo, she had been, like Nukhim, an activist of the right-wing Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair. In 1926, she had been sent by the movement to Moscow, was discovered by GPU agents, arrested, and ended up exiled in Chimkent.

When Malka contracted typhoid fever, she likely would not have survived had it not been for her future husband. Buying scarce chicken on the black market, Nukhim Davidovich made broth for her every day until she recovered. Once the danger had passed, a deep affection blossomed between them — one they could neither hide nor wished to. Soon, Nukhim and Malka were married.

After their release from exile, the Zionists went to Mozhaysk, in the Smolensk region. Those convicted for “political” reasons were forbidden to live in the capital, and Mozhaysk became a kind of hub where opponents of Soviet power from various exiles gathered. It was there, in 1935, that their son was born — Theodore, named after the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl. In the small apartment they rented, there was no furniture, and the baby’s cradle became Nukhim Davidovich’s travel suitcase.

Nukhim Berger and Malka Esrig not only reestablished contact with their friends from Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair but also actively cooperated with the still-functioning central organization — the Gdud (“Battalion”). But by maintaining ties with Zionists and assisting those departing for Eretz Israel, they again drew the attention of the Soviet secret police.

Soon, the Zionists decided to move farther from the capital. They relocated to Kursk, where a large group of shomrim already lived. Among them were Hillel Kaplinsky and his close friend Mendel Beylin — both former Gdud activists — as well as Nema Stock, a Zionist from Baku sympathetic to the Mensheviks and a fierce opponent of the Soviet dictatorship. Also living there were Shabtai Volodarsky, a prominent member of the Tzeirei Zion party, and his comrade Fima Schriftling-Khodi.