Boris Abramovich Shimeliovich (, 1892 – 1952) was the medical director of Moscow's , a well known and widely respected institution. Born in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

, he was an active

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...

who participated in the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

and eventually became active in

Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, abbreviated as JAC, was an organization that was created in the Soviet Union during World War II to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against ...

(JAC). Shimeliovich was arrested on January 13, 1949, for espionage. He was so severely beaten during the interrogations that he had to be carried on a stretcher into the court three years after. He was executed in August 1952 together with other members of JAC, which became known as the

Night of the Murdered Poets Night, or nighttime, is the period of darkness when the Sun is below the horizon. Sunlight illuminates one side of the Earth, leaving the other in darkness. The opposite of nighttime is daytime. Earth's rotation causes the appearance of ...

. On November 22, 1955 (well after

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

's death in 1953), military collegium of the

Supreme Court of the Soviet Union The Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, officially the Supreme Court of the USSR () was the highest court of the Soviet Union during its existence. It was established on November 23, 1923 and was dissolved on January 2, 1992. The Supreme Court of ...

withdrew the indictments against the JAC members due to the lack of evidence. Shimeliovich's

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

membership was restored only in 1988. His brother was (1890-1919), a former member of Bund turned

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

revolutionary.

References

Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
(introduction) by

Joshua Rubenstein Joshua Rubenstein is an American activist, writer and scholar of literature, dissent, and politics in the former Soviet Union. He won a National Jewish Book Award in Eastern European studies in 2002 for his book ''Stalin’s Secret Pogrom''. Bi ...

Seven-fold Betrayal: The Murder of Soviet Yiddish
by Joseph Sherman

External links

*
1951 Soviet report on Shimeliovich
Soviet Jews Latvian Jews 1892 births 1952 deaths Jewish anti-fascists Jewish physicians People from Riga {{Russia-bio-stub