Margarete Buber-Neumann

Margarete Buber-Neumann, born on October twenty-first, nineteen oh one, was a remarkable German writer and journalist whose life was marked by extraordinary resilience and transformation. Initially a senior member of the Communist Party of Germany, her experiences as a Gulag survivor profoundly altered her political beliefs, leading her to become a fervent anti-communist.

Her most notable work, the memoir 'Under Two Dictators,' chronicles her harrowing journey, beginning with her arrest in Moscow during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge. This gripping narrative details her imprisonment as a political prisoner in both the Soviet Gulag and the Nazi concentration camp system, a fate she faced after being handed over by the NKVD to the Gestapo during World War II.

In addition to her literary contributions, Buber-Neumann gained recognition for her testimony in the infamous 'Trial of the Century' regarding the Kravchenko Affair in France. Her courage and commitment to truth were further acknowledged in nineteen eighty when she was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of West Germany, a testament to her enduring legacy.