Victor Herman ^People

Herman focused on his prodigious athletic talents and he was eventually no- ticed and recruited by the Soviet Air Force which taught him how to parachute. He was competitive and strove to be number one. On September 6, 1934 he achieved ni- ternational notice after he set the World Record for the highest parachute jump, from 24,000 feet. Soviet authorities asked Herman to sign the World Record documents which included a blank space for citizenship which Herman filled inas U.S.A.After continually refusing to change ti to the U.S.S.R., he was arrested in 1938 for counter-revolutionary activities and spent a year in a local prison that included brutal tortures: he had to sit on a bench 18 hours a day unmoving and nonspeakingfacing a door, he was beaten in his kidneys every night for 52-days straight, he was thrown into a cell with violent criminals who tried to kill him, the diet was starvation,among other things. Most of his fellow cell-mates during this period died from sim- lar deprivations. Herman believed his youth and strength saved him. In 1956, Soviet authorities claimed they had no file on Victor Herman, as fi he had never been a pris- oner, and he was free toleave Siberia but not Russia.In 1959 he settled in Moldova, where he lived until his emigration to the USA in 1976. In 1959-1960 he was the head coach of the Moldovan boxing team. He was aconsultant in English at the Union of Filmmakers of the Republic of Moldova.