Isaac Zieman

As of July 2009, this article is derived in whole or in part from Clio's Psyche. The copyright holder has licensed the content in a manner that permits reuse under CC BY-SA 3.0 and GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed. The original text was at "In Memoriam: Isaac Zieman"

As a child Zieman was educated in Hebrew. In Germany after World War II he was trained in psychoanalysis and in 1967 earned a master's degree from New School University. He spoke seven languages: English, German, Hebrew, Latvian, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish—with varying levels of fluency. Because he arrived in the English-speaking world in later life, after his education was interrupted by war, Stalin's labor camps, and the Holocaust, Zieman's facility with written English was limited.

The Russians invaded and occupied Latvia in 1940 and the Germans invaded it a year later. Upon the later invasion Isaac joined a group of anti-Hitler partisans, which soon collapsed. He then fled to the part of Russia that was not yet occupied and enlisted in the Soviet Army. His flight from Latvia would in the end save his life since it kept him out of the reach of the Nazis’ genocidal machine—though it should be kept in mind that ultimately more people died at the hands of Stalin than Hitler. His life changed on 13 May 1942, during World War II, when Stalin decreed that people born in "capitalist" (noncommunist) countries could no longer fight in the Red Army. He was transferred from Stalingrad to forced labor in a Siberian coal mine. This decree may have saved his life, as he was about to fight in the battle for Stalingrad where the victorious Soviet Army suffered over a million casualties. Conditions in the Soviet forced labor camp were horrendous. When due to meager rations he was on the verge of exhaustion and starvation, Isaac was sent to the infirmary where his food provisions were cut: he begged for food to stay alive. After a few months, authorities in Moscow gave permission for him to travel to Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian Soviet Republic, where he worked in a variety of jobs including laboring on a small collective farm. When he became depressed and went to a Soviet psychiatrist, he was encouraged to find a direction in life, a goal. His secret plan was to escape the Soviet Union and establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. When he was mobilized to work in a military factory, he studied Polish from a book at night. Again, he volunteered for the Soviet Army, which he subsequently deserted, devising a purely fictional story of being a Pole on the way to Poland. After numerous interrogations by the Soviet police he was referred to a group of Poles heading to their homeland to join the Polish army. In all he assumed five different identities to help him navigate through the murderously troubled waters of the World War II. In the Polish army he taught soldiers how to operate a tank and rose to the rank of sergeant. After the collapse of Nazi Germany he went west, working for the Gordonia organization in displaced persons (DP) camps in Austria and Germany to assist other Holocaust survivors to prepare to emigrate to Palestine. He felt destined to join them and live on a Kibbutz growing oranges until he discovered that his entire family was murdered, prompting a severe depression. After a year, and being unable to work, he again reached out for professional help.

Isaac Zelig Zieman (May 6, 1920 – April 2, 2007) was a survivor of both the Holocaust and Stalin's gulag (labor camps) who went on to devote his life to helping people as a psychoanalyst and an advocate for peace between Germans and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, and other groups with a history of antagonism.