It was a known fact that both Blum and Roosevelt tried to persuade Itkind to leave USSR and move to the West by offering him help, but Itkind refused. In the 1920-30s Itkind was considered a living genius along with Chagall and Picasso, and one of the leading Russian sculptors of 20th century along with Sergej Konenkov and Stepan Erzia. After the exhibition in France in 1937, Itkind was arrested by the KGB, and then was announced dead in the same year. Many famous poets, writers and artists such as Maxim Gorky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Sergej Konenkov, Maximilian Voloshin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergej Yesenin, Aleksey Tolstoy, and Mark Chagall, became close friends of Itkind and adored his creativity. Itkind was a remarkable storyteller and writer. From his oral stories, famous writers and directors – Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Yesenin, Vsevolod Meyerhold, persuaded Itkind to start writing. Alexey Tolstoy in 1934 published several Itkind's storied in the popular "Star" magazine. In 1937, after an exhibition of Itkind's sculpture “Pushkin in Chains” in Paris, France, Itkind was arrested for Japanese espionage and placed into the jail Kresty, where he was beaten, his ribs were broken and eardrums ruptured. Soon after, he was exiled to Siberia, and later to Kazakhstan. The whole world until 1944 believed that Itkind was killed or died in the camps in 1937, it was this date of death that was indicated in the signatures to his sculptures and in literature. Since 1938, Isaak Itkind lived in the village Zerenda, Kazakhstan, in profound poverty. http://www.pkzsk.info/isaak-itkind-skulptor-voskresshij-v-kazaxstane/ At the same time, no one knew that "a half-savage old sorcerer eating roots, living in a dugout and collecting old stumps" was a world-famous sculptor. In 1944 with the help of brave people, who under the risk of being accused with helping “an enemy of the people,” Itkind moved to Alma-Ata (now Alma-Aty), the capital of Kazakhstan that time. Not much is known about Itkind's life until 1956.