Tag #147721 - Interview #78105 (Jacob Mikhailov)

In 1936 arrests commenced [during the Great Terror] [20]. My father was deputy head of the leading committee and he testified to that. He used to get back from work and tell us about new appointments of other people to leading positions. I knew that it meant the former leaders' imprisonment. I don't know what my father was thinking at that moment; maybe he was hoping that it wouldn't touch him. There was a time when my father worked with Polina Zhemchuzhina, Molotov's [21] wife. Once I used to come to my father's work and heard him talking to Zhemchuzhina. My father introduced me to her. She patted me on my shoulder and gave me two big oranges.

I was shocked by the arrests of enemies of the people [22], such eminent militaries as Yakir [23] and others. They were idols for us, the boys. My mother had known the family of Turovskiy, deputy commander of Kharkov, since childhood. They were born in Chernigov, and Turovskiy lived there for a while. Once my mother took me to the cinema to see a documentary on military maneuvers, and Turovskiy was in that movie. Then, after a while, he turned out to be an enemy of the people. I couldn't believe the things published in the press, and I couldn't comprehend how it could have occurred. It didn't make any sense to me. I tried to talk to my father regarding that. He also used to say, 'I cannot understand how people who went through exile, civil war and prisons all of a sudden turn out to be the enemies.