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Founder of the hospice movement in Russia remembered [Новость добавлена - 16.01.2008]

A biography about one of the pioneers of the hospice movement has been launched at the hospice in Oxford where his own daughter died.

Victor Zorza's daughter Jane died of cancer at Sir Michael Sobell House in Oxford in 1977. From that time on, he championed the cause of hospices in the UK and the USA and co-founded Russia's first hospice in St Petersburg in 1990. He was also an acclaimed journalist and leading Kremlinologist with both The Guardian and The Washington Post.
The book's author is the Revd Dr Michael Wright from the International Observatory on End of Life Care at Lancaster University's Institute for Health Research.
 
'When Russia's first hospice opened outside Leningrad (St Petersburg) in the autumn of 1990, it owed much to the perseverance of Victor Zorza. Driven by the death of his 25-year-old daughter in an English hospice, he visited Russia during the decline of Communism to inspire a movement that has since become active in every part of the Federation. Although he died in 1996, his legacy may be found in the hospice and palliative care services which care for the dying throughout the country.

Zorza was born into a Jewish family in eastern Poland in 1925. During the Second World War, just 16 years old, he fled from the advancing Nazis and found himself behind Russian lines. Within months he had been interred in a Gulag camp, dug trenches to impede German tanks and narrowly escaped death in a bombing raid: events that affected him deeply. When Russia joined the allies in 1941, Stalin granted an 'amnesty' to Polish citizens in Soviet exile. In an attempt to return home, Zorza joined former prisoners of war as they made their way south to Buzuluk, where a new force was being mobilised under the command of the Polish officer, General Anders. After Zorza evacuated Soviet territory in 1942, as part of a Polish Air Force Wing, he came under British command in the Middle East and then transferred to England.

After the war, Zorza made his home in Britain and became known as a leading Kremlinologist through his prize-winning column in The Guardian. He developed a unique analytic style which gave him an insight into the minds of Soviet news writers. This technique enabled him to detect early signs of internal strife or shifts in policy in the Communist world, before such matters became generally known. Despite these successes, Zorza never returned to Poland, believing his entire family had perished in the Holocaust. Yet his sister had survived and never lost her hope of finding him. Surprisingly, she was successful. In 1994, after 53 years apart, they were re-united.

Victor Zorza: A life amid loss is the story of one man's determination and remarkable achievement against the odds. It is also a story of pain and loss. Told through the testimonies of those who knew him best, with contemporaneous photographs and extracts from Victor's taped conversations, this book gives an intriguing insight into the contradictory nature of this influential man. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the international development of hospice and end-of-life care. It will also appeal to those drawn to the human narrative of twentieth century conflicts in Europe.'
 
 
From the CEE Palliative Care Newsletter Vol.III. No.12. December 2007