By Alex Gordon
HAIFA, Israel — Alexander Goldman, a Soviet physicist, academician of the Academy of Sciences of Soviet Ukraine, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and professor, was born on February 3, 1884, in Warsaw to a family of a Jewish doctor.
Goldman received his primary education at home, and after his family moved to Kiev in 1890, he enrolled in the First Kiev Gymnasium, which he graduated with a gold medal.
In 1901, Goldman enrolled in the mathematics department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the Imperial University of Saint Vladimir in Kiev. From 1905 to 1908, he continued his studies at the University of Leipzig under the guidance of Professor Otto Wiener. With a “distinguished” evaluation, Goldman defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “Photoelectric Studies of Elements with Dye Solutions.”
The dissertation laid the foundation for the modern quantum integration of photovoltaic phenomena. The scientist continued to investigate the electrical and photovoltaic properties of dielectrics. His research served as a catalyst for numerous works by European and American physicists. In 1908, Alexander Goldman returned to Kiev and graduated from Kiev University in 1909. Due to his Jewish origin, he was not accepted for a job at that university, and he accepted Professor Wiener’s invitation and took the position of full-time assistant at the Physical Institute of Leipzig University.
In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, Goldman left Leipzig and moved to Russia. For a while, he worked in Petrograd at the Chamber of Weights and Measures and simultaneously taught there at the Polytechnic Institute.
In 1918, Goldman returned to Kiev. The events of the Russian Civil War affected him and his family. They suffered in the pogroms: his father was killed by bandits, in his doctor’s office.
From 1918 to 1930, Goldman worked at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute (professor since 1921). At his initiative, a research laboratory was founded in 1921, which was transformed into the Kiev Research Department of Physics in 1922. In 1929, this department became the Kiev Research Institute of Physics. From 1929 to 1938, he was the director of this institute. From 1929 to 1938, he was a professor at Kiev University.
In 1936, Goldman participated in the hiring process for American physicist Dr. Nathan Rosen at his institute. Rosen was a colleague of Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. As Rosen’s contract at Princeton was coming to an end, he, a supporter of socialism, asked Einstein to help him find work in the USSR. Einstein wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars (Prime Minister) Vyacheslav Molotov and recommended that Rosen be hired to work in the USSR. Molotov ordered Moscow physicists to examine Einstein’s request from a professional standpoint.
From the archive of Goldman, the founder and first director of the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kiev, it became known that “In the summer of 1936, the Institute received a letter written on behalf of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR by Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Benzion Vul, proposing to hire Dr. N. Rosen, a young American theoretical physicist and a close collaborator of Professor A. Einstein. I [Alexander Goldman] immediately traveled to Moscow, investigated the circumstances of this offer, and after meeting Dr. Rosen, took steps to have him approved for work at the Institute, which was achieved after overcoming significant difficulties.”
In 1938, Rosen urgently left Kiev and returned to the United States.
On January 22, 1938, Goldman was arrested. He was charged with participation in counter-revolutionary crimes – anti-state subversive and terrorist activities. He was brutally tortured during interrogations, but he categorically denied all charges and said nothing that would have allowed a case to be fabricated against others, as the investigators demanded.
By a decision of the Special Meeting under the People’s Commissar (Minister) of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Goldman was found guilty and exiled to Kazakhstan for five years. The crimes he was accused of were not supported by any evidence; the investigation was forced to drop them because it couldn’t prove them.
Goldman denied everything: “All the accusations that have been made from beginning to end are idle speculation, completely unfounded in reality. Throughout my life, I don’t know of a single instance that I had to hide from the Soviet public. […] No one who knows me well would suspect me of being compliant or wavering on matters of principle, or of being prone to treacherous actions – in other words, of having the flaws that would make me unwillingly find myself among enemies. […] I know about myself that, even in tough times, I willingly and eagerly shared all my knowledge and energy to help educate our country’s young scientists, showing them the paths of science and helping them reach new heights. I know that, despite the obstacles, I left behind a big physics research institute and new scientific talent, which continued to grow even after I was gone.”
During his exile, Goldman was allowed to teach high school in Kazakhstan. He appealed to the Soviet government many times, requesting a review of the unfounded accusations against him. There were no answers.
After his exile ended, Goldman taught at Pedagogical Institutes in Vologda from 1944 to 1952, in Balashov from 1952 to 1956, and in Rostov-on-Don from 1956 to 1959.
On June 20, 1956, Goldman was rehabilitated, and in 1959, he returned to work at the institute he founded in Kiev as the head of the laboratory. I started working at this institute in December 1970. Over the next year, I watched Goldman, at the age of 86, walk up to the top floor of the Institute every day. Regularly, every working day, he spent in his laboratory with his students. He conducted experiments on his own and with their help.
Goldman died in a car accident on December 30, 1971, at the age of 87: he was hit by a Ministry of Internal Affairs vehicle. He bravely endured barbaric interrogations by employes of this ministry in 1938. Perhaps running him over with their car was their revenge on this outstanding person. He was always dedicated to science, a courageous and honest man.
In 1980, I met Professor Nathan Rosen at the Physics Department of the Israel Institute of Technology, the Technion, in Haifa. When we found out that we had worked at the same Kiev institute and that he had taught at Kiev University, where I studied 30 years after he fled Kiev, Rosen asked me about Goldman. It turned out that the shock that finally convinced Rosen to return to the US was Goldman’s arrest in 1938. I told Rosen what I wrote on these pages.
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Alex Gordon is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the Academic College of Education, and the author of 12 books.