For the last 10 years a large part of my life revolved around finding out about my grandfather’s life.  He passed away in 1999 after battling with cancer since 1986. 

After his death I was going through his papers and found some documents that indicated that he spend some time in Soviet GULAG.  I showed the papers to my mom and my grandmother and for the first time in my life they told me that my grandfather spent 11 years in Soviet labor camps as a political prisoner.

After years of research, dead ends, expensive phone calls to various countries that used to comprise the former Soviet Union I managed to track down several people who knew my grandfather in prison.

One of them, Michael Fishman, lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  After getting in touch with him and explaining who I was and what I wanted, he agreed to a meeting and an interview.  I flew to Florida in February of 2002 and spent an entire day with Mr. Fishman and his wife, listening to stories about GULAG and World War II.

At the end of the interview, Mr. Fishman gave me a copy of his memoirs and asked me if I could translate them into English.   A few days ago I found out that Mr. Fishman’s memoirs were accepted into the permanent collection of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.

I know it sounds corny, but I am pretty excited that by translating those memoirs I managed to make some tiny contribution to history.