ABSTRACT
Personal files were opened for Mandelstam and Der Nister upon their arrest. The file header (Document M-1) was made at Butyrka Prison, where, it states, Mandelstam arrived on August 4, 1938. Various numbers are written on this cover page in various hands. The number V/3—2844 on this page is the permanent file number used on the documents in the Mandelstam file. Both files were stored in rather similar heavy brown outer covers. The outer cover that was on the Mandelstam file, Document M-0, dates from the 1960s, as is evident from two printed dates of "196_." The reason for a 1960s cover is a mystery. Perhaps the Magadan Archive reorganized its files. Perhaps someone in the Soviet government took an interest in the file and asked for it to be retrieved, at which time its custodians decided it needed a new, sturdy cover. The cover of Kahanovitch's file (Document K-0) seems to date from around the time of his arrest in 1949. Unlike the Mandelstam cover, it bears the classification "SECRET." It seems likely that stricter secrecy regulations were in effect in the 1940s than in the 1960s. The two dates on the file are February 20,1949, the day after the date of his arrest warrant, and February 19, 1959, the date of the scheduled end of his term of imprisonment. The file number, 021594, appears at the top left of the cover. Lower and to the right is the word "convicted"—presumably added at some point after conviction. Obviously the admonition at the top left of the cover against adding extraneous writings was ignored.
