Tag #152823 - Interview #78127 (Makhlia Khalzova)

We had a loom at home. My mother and I wove carpets and I also liked making picture wall carpets. When my brother brought pictures of Lenin and Stalin and said that they were leaders and we had to keep them in secret I wove their portraits on carpets and hid them. We didn't have information about what was going on in the outer world - in the Soviet Union, in particular. There was only one radio in the village that broadcast programs in Russian that only very few people could understand. However, we had some knowledge about the communist society from newspapers in Ukrainian that were distributed secretly. We believed this was the realm of wealth and justice where all people were equal and there were no rich or poor. Many people looked forward to the establishment of the Soviet power in our area hoping for a better and happier life. Poor Ukrainians and poor Jews looked forward to the coming of the Soviet army. I took no interest in politics and believed my brother Alter who told me about a happy life in the Soviet Union.