The Perversion of Knowledge by Dr. Vadim J. Birstein

Author:Dr. Vadim J. Birstein [VADIM J. BIRSTEIN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

As Solzhenitsyn continued, “in Moscow . . . a miracle took place. . . . Officers carried out Timofeev-Ressovsky from the prisoner transport in their arms, and he was driven away in an ordinary automobile.” However, he was still a convict and was brought to the MVD hospital. Timofeev recalled that “I remembered only that the name of my wife was Lyol’ka [a nickname], but I forgot her full name. I forgot the names of my sons. I forgot everything. I forgot my last name. I remembered only that Nikolai was my first name.”259 Timofeev suffered the consequences of pellagra for the rest of his life: He could not read any more, and his wife had to read scientific articles to him.The German scientists Zimmer, Born, and Katsch “were brought to Moscow and for a year and a half were waiting in [the town of] Elektrostal [near Moscow] for me [i.e., Timofeev] to be found and treated for pellagra.”260 Also, “while I [Timofeev] was improving, physicists and biologists were found among imprisoned intelligentsia through all [camps of] the Soviet Union.They were brought to Butyrka Prison in Moscow and shown to me.”261

Despite the treatment,Timofeev was very weak when he was brought to the sharashka. “I could hardly climb a stair. When I put a foot on the next step, I had no strength to pull the second foot,” Timofeev recalled.262 His wife,Yelena, joined him in the Sungul. Tsarapkin was also transferred to Laboratory B.

In January 1948, the work of Laboratory B was discussed for the first time at a meeting of the Special Committee in Moscow.263 In August 1948, the whole MVD Ninth Directorate, including Laboratory B, was transferred from the MVD to the First Main Directorate.264 Later the lab became Institute B, and then the secret “Object No. 0211.” On the whole, the installation operated from 1946 until 1955. In 1955, construction of the new research nuclear physics institute was started at the same location, and the secret town of Chelyabinsk-70, or Snezhinsk, was built near the institute. In 1992, the institute was renamed the Russian Federation Nuclear Center (RFYaTs-VNIITF).

In May 1946, MVD colonel Aleksandr Uralets-Ketov was appointed director of Object B.Before that he was deputy head of the Tagil Labor Camp, and then the Chelyabinsk Metallurgic Construction Labor Camp, two huge Gulag industrial centers.265 In December 1952, Uralets was transferred to Moscow and a candidate of chemical sciences, Gleb Sereda, was appointed director of Laboratory/Institute B. Timofeev headed the Radiobiological Department, and Professor Sergei Voznesenksy (1892–1958) headed the Chemical Department.266 The staff consisted of imprisoned biologists and physicists, as well as approximately thirty free scientists brought from Germany, including Zimmer,Born, Katsch, and the radiochemist Nikolaus Riehl, who later wrote memoirs about his experience in the Soviet Union.267 This was an unusual sharashka: It was located in a very picturesque place and even imprisoned scientists lived in houses and not in barracks or a prison.

Timofeev’s laboratory studied the effect of radiation on different organisms and on groups of different species

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.