Zvi Preigerzon (1900-1969), a Hebrew writer in the Soviet Union, wrote this book in complete secrecy, to the extent that he even hid its existence from his own family. The book is about the Jewish community in Hadiach, a small town in Ukraine where Shneur Zalman Schneerson, the founder of the Chabad movement, is buried. The town was occupied by the German army during the war and most of its Jewish population perished. Zvi Preigerzon describes the life of the simple Jewish people and their suffering under the Nazis, with a Kabbalistic spiritual touch: the Perpetual Flame of the Menorah at the grave of Shneur Zalman Schneerson symbolizes the very spirit of Jewish life, which it is said will persist as long as the flame is burning.

Zvi Preigerzon (1900-1969), a Hebrew writer in the Soviet Union, wrote this book in complete secrecy, to the extent that he even hid its existence from his own family. The book is about the Jewish community in Hadiach, a small town in Ukraine where Shneur Zalman Schneerson, the founder of the Chabad movement, is buried. The town was occupied by the German army during the war and most of its Jewish population perished. Zvi Preigerzon describes the life of the simple Jewish people and their suffering under the Nazis, with a Kabbalistic spiritual touch: the Perpetual Flame of the Menorah at the grave of Shneur Zalman Schneerson symbolizes the very spirit of Jewish life, which it is said will persist as long as the flame is burning.

Zvi Preigerzon wrote memoirs about his time in the Gulag in 1958, long before Solzhenitsyn and without any knowledge of the other publications on this subject. It was one of the first eyewitness accounts of the harsh reality of Soviet Gulags. Even after the death of Stalin, when the whole Gulag system was largely disbanded, writing about them could be regarded as an act of heroism. Preigerzon attempted to document and analyze his own prison camp experience and portray the Jewish prisoners he encountered in forced labor camps. Among these people, we meet scientists, engineers, famous Jewish writers and poets, young Zionists, a devoted religious man, a horse wagon driver, a Jewish singer of folk songs, and many, many others. As Preigerzon put it, "Each one had his own story, his own soul, and his own tragedy."