Reproducing actual Soviet documents, this work examines what prison and labour camp files reveal of the fate of the poet Osip Mandelstam and the history of the Yiddish writer Pinhas Kahanovich (Der Nister). It also provides a guide to the analysis of Stalin-era prison and labour camp files.

Introduction; About the Documents; A Prisoner's Personal File: Cover and Cover Page; Order to Receive a Prisoner; Order on the Selection of a Measure of Restraint; The Search Record; Arrestee Form; Intake Fingerprint Form; Preconviction Transfer to Another Prison; Search on Prison Transfer; Prisoner Photographs; Permission to Receive Items; Prisoner Interrogation Records; Extension of Detention; The Decision to Send to a Special Camp; The Decision of the Special Board; The Prisoner's Acknowledgment of Receipt of the Decision of the Special Board; Notice; Transfer to Being Held for the Special Board; Order to Transfer to a Labor Camp; Camp Records—Form No. 1; Certification on Property; Medical Treatment; Death Certificates; Postmortem Fingerprinting; Burial; Correspondence with Relatives; Concluding Thoughts;