Leonid Karlinsky's father Meyer Karlinsky

My father, Meyer Karlinsky, photographed in his uniform in the town of Orienbaum (in the vicinity of Leningrad) in January 1931. My father, Meyer Karlinsky, and my mother, Bertha Karlinskaya, were typical representatives of a generation of young Soviets who were so fond of the revolutionary and communist ideas that they rejected their past. They didn't recall or tell their children about their roots or about the history of their families. They were obsessed with the idea of communism and rejected everything that had existed before - the Jewish way of life, religion, traditions and their mother tongue. Soon after the war started, my father got an assignment with the NKVD units and was sent to Volhovstroy, one of the construction sites of the Belomoro-Baltic channel. At that time, the Soviet authorities imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people and these prisoners were employed in the construction of the channel and Volhovstroy. My father was working as a guard at the camp. Later, he was sent to be trained as a gunman. There were automatic guns around the camp zone and trained gunmen were needed. After this training my father was sent to the NKVD Officer Training Course in Leningrad.