Author: Mikhail Krivitsky


The life path of Maria Abramovna Chernikhovskaya (née Trok) is a vivid example of how the Bolshevik state tried to break a person who was internally free, gifted, hardworking, and loyal. Such a person would hardly have become a convenient cog in Stalin's command-administrative system that was emerging in the 1920s. But these personal qualities helped Maria endure the hardships of exile while supporting her husband, work successfully helping people, and receive a worthy education. But let's take everything in order.

Maria was born on June 14, 1907 (interrogation documents erroneously indicate 1906) in the city of Nikolaev in the south of the Russian Empire (now the capital of the Nikolaev region of Ukraine). There she spent her childhood and youth, graduating from a secondary medical school. At the end of summer 1925, the young woman went to Kiev in search of work. These efforts were unsuccessful, and Maria soon found herself in the city of Konotop (now a district center in the Sumy region of Ukraine). On December 5, 1925, she was detained by the local criminal investigation department in the apartment of her acquaintance, Fanya Nonina.

At first glance, the only formal violation of rules on our heroine's part was "illegal residence" – that is, lack of registration. However, the criminal investigation department was, of course, dealing with much more serious matters. Esther Moiseevna Sholkova was charged under Article 70 of the USSR Criminal Code – anti-Soviet agitation, participation in a Zionist organization. Maria was detained under her fictitious name. This false name, it should be noted, stayed with Maria for the rest of her life: she would be called Esther in all documents after her arrest and even after her release. Therefore, to avoid confusion, we will continue to call her by this name.

Esther-Maria was indeed a member of "Hashomer Hatzair," a left-wing Zionist youth organization – a kind of Jewish scouting movement that prepared young people for resettlement in Palestine and the creation of kibbutzim – agricultural communes there. The organization was finally banned in 1927, and its participants were subjected to political persecution.

At the time of Esther's arrest, anti-Zionist repressions were just beginning to gain momentum. She was one of the first to fall under this steamroller.

Initially, the evidence (and only indirect at that) of Esther's involvement in the Zionist movement was her acquaintance with Olga Mondrus – an active Zionist who had moved to Palestine. During interrogation on December 6, Esther stated that she had no connection to the Zionist organization whatsoever. Apparently, for the investigation of those years, this was sufficient for justification, and on January 25, 1926, the head of the Konotop District Department of the GPU, Kaminsky, sent the case to the district prosecutor's office for "termination." However, the prosecutor's office was more vigilant. It was discovered that Esther was a Zionist courier under the nickname Musya; her real name was also established - Maria Abramovna Trok. The initial decision to "merely" expel her from the Ukrainian SSR was twice changed to harsher rulings. As a result, Esther received 3 years of exile to the Urals according to documents, but in fact, she was transported to Western Siberia, where she arrived in the summer of 1926.

Human character is most fully revealed in extreme situations, and Esther immediately made it clear to investigators that she was not faint-hearted. The very next day after her arrest, on December 6, 1925, in statements to the prosecutor of Konotop and the head of the local criminal investigation department, the girl called her detention illegal and declared a hunger strike (if necessary, she specified, a deadly one), as she did not consider it "possible to be in the environment and midst of criminal offenders." On December 8, Esther confirmed the determination of her intentions to investigator Klimenko.

Consciously or intuitively, the girl attacked the bureaucratic machine with its own weapon – endless documents, and officials were forced to respond within established deadlines. This undoubtedly contributed to the speedy consideration of the case. Additionally, during interrogations, Esther did not betray any of her comrades, immediately refusing to name relatives and acquaintances: "I do not wish to involve them in a case incomprehensible to me." Esther's behavior reveals her as a brave and resourceful person, ready to fight for her rights even in a state whose legal standards were extremely far from democratic.

In exile, Esther also did not lose heart and quickly found her place. Already in August 1926, she got a job as a nurse-trainee at a hospital in the city of Surgut – a major center for the resettlement of "declassed elements" and deportees. From August 1928 to April 1929, Esther worked as a head nurse at the district hospital in the village of Samarovo in the Tobolsk district.

Apparently, it was there, in Samarovo, that Esther met her future husband – David Aizikovich Basov. Like Maria, he lived under fake documents – under the name of Iosif Mordukhovich (Matveevich) Chernikhovsky. Born in Crimea, David Basov became fascinated with Zionist ideas in his youth. In 1923, he joined the ranks of "Hashomer Hatzair" and became an active member of the organization, serving as a squad leader. In June 1925, the Chekists uncovered the Crimean organization of "Hashomer," and its leaders, including David Basov, were arrested. Basov was sentenced to 3 years of exile in Kyrgyzstan, from where he was transferred to Orenburg. From there he escaped, hiding in the Moscow region, Kharkov, and then Minsk. Here Basov obtained a fake birth certificate in the name of Iosif Mordukhovich Chernikhovsky – the real Chernikhovsky had already left for Palestine by this time. And here, in Minsk, the OGPU picked up Basov-Chernikhovsky's trail, and after another arrest, he ended up in the village of Samarovo. The paths of the future spouses intersected.

This was truly a fortunate coincidence; largely thanks to this meeting, they survived and endured in exile. It's curious and touching in its own way that David always called his wife Fira – by her fictitious name.

Subsequently, the Chernikhovskys did everything to avoid separation. This wasn't always possible. In 1929, David faced new serious charges under Article 58-10 of the RSFSR Criminal Code – anti-Soviet propaganda among the indigenous peoples of the North (Ostyaks). Initially, Basov-Chernikhovsky spent four agonizing months in Tobolsk prison, and afterward – more than a year in the Suzdal political isolator.

Esther left Samarovo and took a position as head nurse in the scarlet fever department of the Omsk Railway Hospital, working there concurrently as a diagnostic department nurse from April 1930. In August 1931, David was released early from the political isolator and immediately sent to a new place of exile: the village of Kolpashevo (now a district center in Tomsk Oblast). There, the couple reunited. From December 1, Esther worked as a paramedic at the Kolpashevo District Hospital.