Julia Brystiger
| Julia Brystiger | |
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Julia Brystiger
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| Born | November 25, 1902 Stryj, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | November 9, 1975 Warsaw, Poland |
| Other names | Luna Brystygier |
| Citizenship | Polish |
| Occupation | Interrogator |
| Known for | State Security Services (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa) |
| Personal details | |
| Ethnicity | Jewish |
| Beliefs | Pro-Soviet Communist |
Julia Brystiger (née Prajs, born November 25, 1902, in Stryj – died November 9, 1975, in Warsaw) was a Polish Communist activist and member of the security apparatus in Stalinist Poland. She was also known as Julia Brystygier, Bristiger, Brustiger, Briestiger, Brystygierowa, Bristigierowa, and by her nicknames – given by the victims of torture: Luna, Bloody Luna, Daria, Ksenia, and Maria. The nickname Bloody Luna was a direct reference of her Gestapo-like methods during interrogations. Her pen name was Julia Preiss. Author of several books.
Brystiger was the daughter of a Jewish pharmacist from Stryj (now Ukraine). In 1920 she graduated from high school in Lwów (new Second Polish Republic) and married a Zionist activist Natan (Nathan) Brystiger. She studied history at the Lwów University while pregnant and a year later gave birth to a son, Michał Bristiger.
After graduating from University, Brystiger went to Paris where she continued her education, receiving a PhD in philosophy. Upon their return, in 1928–1929, she got a job at a high school in Vilnius and in a Jewish Teacher's College Tarbuch. Since 1927, she was an active participant in the communist movement, and in 1929 was fired because of her communist agitation. Working for the Communist Party of Poland, she was arrested several times, and in 1937 was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
After the German and Soviet attack on Poland, Brystiger escaped to Samarkand, accepted Soviet citizenship and became an active member of the Soviet political administration. She created the so-called Committee of Political Prisoners, which helped the NKVD to imprison several members of the prewar Polish opposition movements. She was "denouncing people on such scale, that she antagonized even Communist party members". Ironically, at one point Brystiger oversaw the interrogation and persecution of Bela and Józef Goldberg – her future colleague, the UB interrogator known as Józef Różański. Różańskis had committed "a crime" of accepting Western food-aid in the form of two kilograms of rice and a bag of flour from the Polish Government in Exile's embassy, in order to save their daughter from starvation. A few years later, Józef Różański joined the NKVD and eventually, became a high ranking functionary in the Polish secret police. He ended up working alongside Brystiger – his former interrogator – in the Ministry of Public Security of Poland under Stalinism.
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