In Moscow, between 1934 and 1936, using the party name "Maria Herbst", she studied at the so-called 'West University'. In 1937 she started teaching at evening classes for exiled German workers, and from 1938 she was working in an "Emigrant Home". In June 1941 the Berlin government turned its back on the non-aggression pact with Moscow and launched a massive land invasion of the Soviet Union. Several thousand German political refugees who had been living in Moscow were unceremoniously sent into internal exile. Maria Blum was exiled to Tomsk in Western Siberia. She was able to return to Germany only in August 1947.