A Man Who Knew How to Love
Cheerful, tall, handsome, kind… This is how Efrem Efimovich (Efraim Khaimovich) Gerber was remembered by his family and those close to him—a loving husband, a devoted father, a loyal friend, a brilliant engineer, generously endowed with many other talents as well. For example, he sang beautifully—he had a baritone of rare timbre. He could have become an excellent teacher—anyone might have envied his ability to communicate with children and teenagers. But his greatest talent lay in his ability to love—people in general, his own people, his loved ones—and to be grateful to them for every day they spent together. Efrem Gerber knew how to make those around him happy, and he himself lived a happy, though not easy, life.
Life was never simple—helping his parents, diligent study, building a career and caring for his family, the hardships of wartime. But the most terrible thing was to be caught in the machinery of the system. The main reason for the repressions was Gerber’s sincere desire to help bring closer together the Soviet Union and the newly established State of Israel. In 1949, he was arrested on fabricated charges of anti-Soviet agitation and preparing to flee abroad. He spent seven long years behind barbed wire in Siberia, in Ozerlag—a special camp for political prisoners located in the Irkutsk region. And only in April 1956, three years after Stalin’s death and after Khrushchev had delivered his famous speech denouncing the cult of personality, did he return home. He stepped off the “Taishet–Moscow” train aged and thin, yet still the same kind and generous man, with eyes that never ceased to smile…
Commercial School and a Zionist Circle in Elisavetgrad
Efraim Gerber was born in 1897 in the shtetl of Berezovka in the Kherson Governorate, where Jews made up half the population. There were four synagogues in Berezovka; a Talmud Torah, a vocational school, and a girls’ gymnasium operated there; and there was a Jewish library. Efraim’s father, Khaim, was a miller. He inherited nothing from anyone—he built his livelihood through his own hard labor. From an early age, Khaim Gerber worked as a hired laborer for a landowner, then leased a plot of land from him, and later built a mill on it… He began accustoming his children to work on the land from a young age.
Efraim showed remarkable musical ability from childhood—his singing captivated his parents, his brothers and sisters, and everyone who came to visit. When the boy sang, his father nearly wept and thanked God for having given him such a gifted son. But when it came time to choose a profession, Khaim forbade his son even to think about entering a conservatory, threatening him with a father’s curse. “One can sing at home,” he would say. “Singing is not a profession.” Khaim wanted his sons to become “decent, respected members of society.” In the end, Efraim enrolled in the commercial school in Elisavetgrad (later Kirovograd, now Kropyvnytskyi).
From the second half of the 19th century, Jewish life in this city was vibrant. It was here, in 1880, that the well-known playwright and publicist Yakov Gordin founded the Spiritual-Biblical Brotherhood, whose aim was a radical reform of Judaism. Gordin, who was strongly influenced by Leo Tolstoy, advocated transforming religion into an ethical and social teaching. In the late 1890s, a Zionist circle appeared in Elisavetgrad under the leadership of the local state-appointed rabbi, Ze’ev Temkin. During the First World War, the circle provided extensive assistance to Jewish refugees expelled by the tsarist authorities from the front-line zone. In 1916, Efraim Gerber, then a student at the commercial school, joined this circle.
After the February Revolution of 1917, the Zionist movement in Russia was legalized, but only briefly. (Zionist organizations and the promotion of Zionist ideas had been banned in the Russian Empire by a special secret circular issued by Interior Minister Plehve in 1903.) After seizing power, the Bolsheviks began persecuting Zionists. In 1920, Temkin was forced to leave Soviet Russia, and members of the circle he led were subjected to detentions and arrests. This also affected Efraim Gerber. After being released following a series of interrogations, he abandoned Zionist activity, but preserved his dream of creating an independent Jewish state for the rest of his life. Later, this would come back to haunt him painfully.
The Scent of Coffee, Cinnamon, and Vanilla
But at that time, in 1921, the future looked quite optimistic. Life under the new authorities opened up broad opportunities for Jews. Thousands of young people from Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Bessarabian shtetls streamed into the big cities, finding work and enrolling in higher education institutions. Efrem Gerber became a student at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.
At the same time, another wonderful event took place in Efrem’s life—he married an extraordinarily beautiful young woman who, like him, had once dreamed of a musical career. The blue-eyed beauty Fanya Fainleib had been taught to play the piano by the famous pianist Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus himself, who in the 1920s often dined at her mother’s home in Kyiv. Unlike her future husband, Fanya enrolled in the conservatory, but after faltering during her state examinations, she ran off the stage and never received her diploma. She spent her entire life working as a German language teacher.
After graduating from the institute and receiving a degree in mechanical engineering, Efrem and his wife moved to Luhansk. There, the promising young specialist attracted the attention of the People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry, Sergo Ordzhonikidze. On his orders, Gerber was transferred to work in the capital of the Soviet Union, Moscow. It was there, in 1932, that Efrem and Fanya’s daughter, Alla, was born.
Gerber quickly became a recognized specialist in his field. He held the position of Deputy Chief Engineer at the Moscow Ball Bearing Plant. His works were published in professional journals—Podvizhnoy Sostav and Mashinostroitel—as well as in the newspaper Mashinostroitel. For his professional achievements, Gerber was repeatedly awarded certificates of honor by the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR and the Ministry of Transport Machine Building. He was a regular participant in scientific and technical congresses and conferences. In time, he was invited to teach at the country’s leading engineering institution—the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School (MVTU).
They lived in a communal apartment on Furmanniy Lane near Chistoprudny Boulevard, in the very center of Moscow. In their large room in the communal flat, there was always the scent of coffee, vanilla, and cinnamon, and Efrem tried to turn every day into a celebration. He did not know how to economize, loved giving gifts, and would bring his beloved wife flowers with or without occasion. Efrem tried to spend as much time as possible with his daughter. On weekends, they went to theaters and museums, and then would go out to dine at some fashionable café.
Moscow, April 1941: “Beat the Jews, save Russia!”
But there were also tragic events in the family’s life. In the second half of the 1930s, two of Efrem’s brothers were repressed. One of them was executed in 1937; the other died in custody in 1941.
There were difficulties in everyday life as well. Little Alla had her own sorrows—neighboring children teased her for being overweight. More than once, the Gerbers also encountered manifestations of antisemitism—at that time mostly at the everyday level.
Once, when Efrem and seven-year-old Alla were walking along Gorky Street, some thirteen-year-old boy hissed right into their faces: “Beat the Jews, save Russia!” Demonstrating his remarkable pedagogical abilities, Gerber quickly managed to explain to the teenager that Jews are an ancient and worthy people, and that, in general, every nation living on earth is remarkable in its own way. The incident ended quite peacefully, and Efrem, Alla, and the boy—who had learned a great deal—went off together for ice cream.
Wartime Hardships: Working on Katyusha Production and the Loss of Family
Two months later, the war began. Fanya and Alla were evacuated to Tashkent. Efrem also left Moscow together with his factory. He was not drafted into the army because his work on the home front was considered too important. The factory where he worked produced components for the legendary Katyusha rocket launchers. After the victory, Efrem Gerber was awarded the Medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.”
Yet, like millions of others, for Gerber it was truly a victory with tears. Efrem’s father, Chaim, had died before the war, in 1933. But his mother, as well as his sisters and their children, remained in occupied Odessa. All of them perished in the Holocaust. The husbands of Efrem’s sisters were killed at the front.
The scale of Nazi atrocities that came to light after the war deeply shocked Soviet Jews. In most cases, their hopes of finding relatives and loved ones who had been unable to evacuate from the occupied territories were tragically dashed. This was one of the reasons why they greeted the news of the establishment of the State of Israel with such enthusiasm. Moreover, the Soviet Union had supported the relevant United Nations resolution and formally recognized the independence of the Jewish state de jure.
A Letter to Molotov and Hopes for a Posting to Israel
Efrem Gerber was among those who rejoiced at the creation of Israel. After the war, his career continued to develop successfully—he was appointed head of a department at a research institute of the Ministry of Machine Building and Instrument Engineering. The list of his awards also grew—in 1947, Gerber was awarded the medal “In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow” and the badge “Excellent Worker of the Machine-Building Industry of the USSR.”
Diplomatic relations were established between Israel and the USSR, but it seemed to Gerber that cultural and economic ties between the two countries were developing insufficiently intensively. For example, he believed that the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge could organize a series of lectures on the political system and economic structure of the State of Israel. In addition, Gerber thought that the Supreme Soviet of the USSR could consider the issue of strengthening interparliamentary relations between the Soviet Union and Israel. Seeing nothing improper in this, he openly expressed his ideas in conversations with friends and neighbors.
Moreover, at the end of 1948, Gerber decided to address this matter directly to Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov. He sent a letter to the head of the Foreign Ministry in which he shared his thoughts on strengthening cultural and economic ties between Israel and the USSR. To this end, Gerber proposed that Molotov send a special commission to Israel. Its tasks, in particular, were to include providing technical and economic assistance to the young Jewish state. Gerber believed that he could take responsibility for this sphere of the commission’s work and noted that he would not object to a temporary posting abroad.
At the end of 1948, an uninformed Soviet citizen might indeed have thought that relations between Israel and the USSR were developing quite successfully. After all, in September, thousands of Moscow Jews welcomed the Israeli ambassador Golda Meerson (Meir), who visited the synagogue on Arkhipov Street during the days of the Rosh Hashanah holiday. But by that time, the Soviet leadership had already realized that it would not be able to bring
Israel into its sphere of influence. The response was the persecution of anyone who in any way expressed sympathy for the Jewish state or was noticed, for example, studying Hebrew. Arrests began of members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, figures of science and culture, and ordinary citizens. In the Soviet Union, a fierce campaign against “cosmopolitans” unfolded, ultimately culminating in the “Doctors’ Plot.”
Alla and Efim also “got caught up in the story”—at first, it was simply a very unpleasant one. When the Gerbers returned from evacuation, they discovered that their room in the communal apartment had been taken over by a neighbor named Cherny, a former military man who was now a building manager and a personal pensioner. It was not possible to resolve the issue peacefully—intervention was required from various authorities, from the People’s Court to the Supreme Court of the RSFSR and the Civil Commission under the Supreme Court of the USSR. During the prolonged legal battle, Cherny constantly threatened Efrem that he would “settle scores with him for everything.”
Through threats and blackmail, the retired military man managed to win over another neighbor, named Rosenthal. Together, they wrote a denunciation of Efrem Gerber to the MGB. In it, among other things, it was claimed that Gerber “slandered Soviet reality and the system of the Soviet apparatus, the Soviet press, praised the state structure of capitalist countries, and expressed dissatisfaction with living conditions in the Soviet Union.”
Irkutsk Ozerlag Instead of a Posting to Israel
In March 1949, Gerber was arrested. In addition to anti-Soviet propaganda, he was accused of attempting to flee the USSR. This entirely fabricated charge was supported by his letter to Molotov—allegedly, Gerber had “in pursuit of his treasonous aims submitted an application to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting to be used in diplomatic work in the State of Israel and, upon arriving there, to remain.” Gerber’s participation in the Zionist circle in Elisavetgrad was also recalled and likewise classified as anti-Soviet activity—although Efrem had joined this circle back in 1916.
Investigators tried to extract from Gerber confessions of illegal contacts with Israeli diplomats working in Moscow and personally with Golda Meir. He was accused of participating in a Zionist conspiracy, whose alleged members included Solomon Mikhoels (killed on Stalin’s orders in January 1948) and Lion Feuchtwanger (who at that time was living in the United States). Gerber categorically rejected all these monstrous fabrications, and, as was noted in a later prosecutorial protest, “only beginning with the interrogation that lasted from 2:30 a.m. on August 5 until 3:00 a.m. on August 7, 1949, did he state that at various times and separately, with Rosenthal and with each of them, he had at times made slanderous insinuations against the State Security organs while discussing the arrest of his brothers.” The same document contains references to interrogations on August 9–10 and 26–27. This indicates that MGB investigators extracted confessions from Gerber around the clock, subjecting him to abuse and depriving him of rest and sleep.
The conclusion of the military prosecutor’s office in Gerber’s case also claimed that, while in custody, he continued to conduct anti-Soviet agitation among his cellmates. In any case, his sentence, like that of many thousands of other innocent people, had been decided in advance. On October 26, 1949, the Special Meeting of the MGB of the USSR sentenced Efrem Gerber to 10 years in the Gulag “for participation in an anti-Soviet nationalist organization, anti-Soviet agitation, and preparation to flee abroad.”
Such was the reverse side of the cheerful, rich, and comfortable life in the Soviet capital. With a single stroke of the pen, a settled and self-confident man was turned into camp dust, an outcast, an enemy of the people. Gerber was sent to serve his sentence in Ozerlag—a special camp for political prisoners in the Irkutsk region.
Futile Attempts to Achieve Justice and Long-Awaited Release
To the credit of many people from Gerber’s close circle, it must be said that they did not rush to disown a friend or neighbor who had become an “enemy of the people.” During interrogations at the MGB, Efrem’s acquaintances and colleagues stated that they could characterize Gerber only in positive terms. For example, his neighbor, war veteran Pyotr Shpitalnik, declared that he had never heard Gerber make anti-Soviet statements and that all his views were politically sound. And Efrem’s fellow countryman Aron Rabinov, who had known him since Berezovka, testified that Gerber had never given any reason to consider him “not a Soviet person” and that he had “always correctly assessed the situation in the country.”
Fanya, Efrem’s wife, submitted a petition to the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office, in which she emphasized that she had known her husband “only as a true Soviet person, a principled and honest worker.” She tried to explain that Efrem had become the victim of an informer and slanderer who had taken over their living space. But all was in vain.
While serving his sentence in the harsh conditions of Siberia, Gerber repeatedly tried to have his case reviewed. In April 1952, he personally appealed to Lavrentiy Beria, who at that time held the post of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. In his letter, Gerber convincingly and irrefutably refuted the charges brought against him. However, the Special Meeting of the MGB of the USSR once again issued a disappointing, though entirely expected, decision: “The petition of the convicted Gerber is to be left without satisfaction.”
Only in March 1956, three years after Stalin’s death, did the Prosecutor General’s Office appeal to the Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR with a request to annul the decision of the Special Meeting of the MGB in relation to Efrem Gerber and “to terminate the criminal case against him for lack of corpus delicti. Gerber is to be released from custody.” And only in 1957 did he finally step off the “Taishet–Moscow” train, a camp suitcase in his hands. Approaching the door of his Moscow apartment, he exclaimed: “L’chaim!”
The harsh years of imprisonment did not break Efrem—he remained the same cheerful and loving person. But in the camp he lost his voice—the guards forced him to sing in the freezing cold when columns of prisoners marched to the logging sites. After his release, he no longer sang… In addition, Efrem nearly lost his leg—as a result of frostbite, gangrene set in, and he was saved by another prisoner, a Ukrainian named Ivan Manyukh, who was serving a sentence as a Banderite (a member of the Ukrainian nationalist movement associated with Stepan Bandera). A professional surgeon, he operated on his Jewish comrade twice. Efrem’s leg was saved. The former prisoners continued to maintain a friendly connection even after their release.
In 1966, during the May holidays, Efrem and Fanya planned to travel to visit relatives in Kyiv. They bought gifts for everyone and train tickets, but unexpectedly Efrem began to feel unwell—he was diagnosed with inflammation of the gallbladder. He was prepared for surgery and given anesthesia, from which he never recovered… It was a rare case—a poorly administered anesthetic that proved fatal. Efrem Gerber died at the age of 69—by today’s standards, not old at all.
Many people came to pay their last respects. Passersby asked, “Who has died? There are so many people.” No, it was not a high-ranking party official, not an academician, not a People’s Artist. It was simply a kind and intelligent man, whose greatest talent was his ability to love life and to love people.
His only daughter, Alla Gerber, became a writer, film critic, journalist, and public figure. Her life can serve as an example of how personal memory is transformed into a public position. Having received a legal education, she fairly early immersed herself in the sphere of the word—in journalism and literature—where she found a language for speaking about the individual, about time, and about responsibility. In the 1970s–1980s, she became a notable figure in the cultural sphere, wrote about cinema, and worked as an editor, shaping a tone of attentive and thoughtful reflection on art and society.
In the post-Soviet years, her voice became especially clear—not only as the voice of an author, but also as the voice of a citizen. Alla Gerber became one of those who consistently and persistently spoke about the need to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, about the struggle against antisemitism and xenophobia, and about human dignity as the highest value. Her work is a continuation of a personal history transformed into a form of responsibility before the past and the future.
12.04.2026
Authors: Boris Entin, Anna Nevzlin
Translated by Lena Lores
Biography and sources:
State Archive of the Russian Federation, investigative file P-23450
Alla Gerber, Mom and Dad, Moscow, Stels, 1994
Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia, entries “Kropyvnytskyi,” “Berezovka”
Photographs from the family archive of Alla Gerber
Efrem Gerber
1897 – 1966
