After the war, he spent six years imprisoned in Siberian Gulag forced labor camps for distributing books sympathetic to Zionism.

In the summer of 1941, when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union by way of Minsk, Rubin was forced to join the stream of refugees fleeing deeper into Russia, and was drafed by the Luftwaffe.

The three of them remained with a Jewish blacksmith, until the Germans occupied the town, preventing their plans to move further east.

They obtained their daily necessities at great risk from German sentries by bartering their aunt's belongings through the ghetto fence.

[2] Tamara joined the partisans and he fled to the 'Aryan' part of the town where, beset by the hatred and physical abuse by the locals,[3] he tried to survive.

He destroyed his Russian papers and returned to Minsk, where he discovered that not a single member of his family remained alive.

[14] Rubin was sent by the local boxing federation to take part in a national exhibition of physical culture in Red Square in Moscow.

A military court sentenced him to five years of 're-education' `in a labor camp for his 'nationalist' (i.e. Jewish) views, his unhealthy opinions about the Soviet regime, and his destructive influence on local youth.

Back in Minsk, he entered The Institute of Physical Culture, which provided generous stipends, larger food rations and even an array of sportswear.

As Soviet rule in Latvia only dated from the Second World War, Jewish activists, especially in Beitar, were still open and active.

Young Minsk Jews were also interested in Gromyko's and Cherepakhin's speeches about the establishment of the new state of Israel, with which Russia then enjoyed warm relations.

The official list of the charges was treason, attempted assassination of a senior party leader and government minister, (in this case, the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev), anti-Soviet propaganda, dissemination of Zionist literature, ties with the Israeli embassy and the inflaming nationalist passions.

Rubin's second co-accused was a doctor, the son of a veteran communist with long years of underground activity to his credit, including interest in Zionism.

For this reason, he declared it was important to him that he retain his dignity, proving once and for all that Jews were people of steadfast principle, and neither cowards nor traitors.

In his closing remarks, the prosecutor asked that Rubin be sentenced to five years re-education in a labor camp as the organizer of a criminal cell.

[23] In his closing remarks, Rubin defended his actions, highlighted state-sanctioned anti-Semitism and the suppression of the Jews' national life.

The KGB had spread the word that Rubin had planned to blow up the Minsk hotel; that he had been caught in the company of an agent who had given him information to take to the West; and that a half million roubles in foreign currency were found in his possession.

During the last three years of his sentence (1962–1965), he was interned at Lagpunkt 10 where all prisoners wore striped overalls, were held in cells after work, and denied the 'privilege' of walking around the camp grounds.

For this activity, which was forbidden both within the camp and in the USSR generally, they would gather in one of the clothing storerooms to hear one of the older inmates recite the prayers.

There, in samizdat form, it fulfilled a critical and formative role in the awakening the national consciousness of Soviet Jewry.

[citation needed] As the prospect of his release came closer, his health began to fail as a result of the endless stress of hunger rations, physical strain, and inhuman conditions.

Throughout the spring of 1964, the inmates worked standing in pools of freezing melt-water, as a result, pain in his feet and legs built up until he could hardly sleep at night.

The camp authorities offered him an early release on condition that he sign an application for a pardon, which was effectively an admission of guilt, which he declined.

He met with youth, attended the synagogue and visited Rumbula ravine where the Jews of Riga had been massacred during the Holocaust.

Several times it happened that someone would approach him and suggest, in absolute secrecy, that he give him a booklet to read that he himself had put into circulation.

To justify these visits, he took advantage of Soviet regulations that allowed anyone who donated blood to receive two days vacation.

He traveled to Riga and asked friends who had received permits to try to obtain an official invitation for him to immigrate once they reached Israel.

There he found a large group of Russian Zionist activists who felt the time had come for open and public action against attempts to halt emigration from the USSR.

When Russian Aliyah activists failed to persuade either Nativ or the Israeli Government to do more, they declared a hunger strike in front of the Wailing Wall.

To ensure that his experiences in the Holocaust and the gulags were not forgotten, he wrote his memoirs, first in Russian, a work My Path to the Land of Israel for which he shared first prize in a nationwide competition, which he was awarded in 1975, by Israeli President Ephraim Katzir.