Tag #153767 - Interview #102451 (Solomon Manevich)

I was aware of the actual situation and knew that historians manipulated with the history and I decided to stay aside from any political or social sciences and go to study at the Industrial College (that became Polytechnic College after the war). I entered the Faculty of Chemistry at the Industrial College in 1935. Efimov, the rector of this college was arrested and executed as a Trotskist 19 when I was a 1st year student. Then every year there was another director of the college assigned. Nobody asked where a previous one disappeared. [Editor’s note: each year the actual director was arrested, then killed. So while Solomon studied there the college had 4 directors, from which 3 was killed.] We were all aware that they were exterminated as ‘enemies of the people’ and that they were innocent victims. The last rector during my studies – a postgraduate student called Shpilko, shook every student’s hand fearing that one might be an informer and write a report on him. He was assigned by the Party committee of the College and was afraid to refuse this position.