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I remember arrests that started in 1936 [during the so-called Great Terror] 17. There were numbers of Ukrainians arrested as enemies of people 18. Our landlord in Gulyaypole had been a soldier in the tsarist army, when he was young. When I knew him, he was an old man and always ill. One night in winter the 'black voronok' vehicle drove to the house. [Editor's note: 'voron,' diminutive 'voronok,' means 'raven' in Russian, supposed to bring trouble.] The officers came into the house and took the man away with them. His wife was crying. I said, 'Why arrest him? He is ill. What has he done to you?' - 'Shut up! Or you will go with us, too'. He never returned to the village.
We had a nice Ukrainian teacher of chemistry and physics. We liked her and her classes. We noticed that she always had red eyes from crying. Once she couldn't hold back her tears in class. She probably knew what she was up to. One day the director came into the class and said that she happened to be an enemy of the people, a Ukrainian nationalist, and had been arrested. It's not that we believed our director, but we couldn't help thinking: 'How come she can be an enemy of the people?' My classmate Zhenia Skrypnik was the daughter of the chairman of the Gulyaypole village council. She was a smart and nice girl. When her father was arrested, we had a hostile and suspicious attitude towards her.
Our teachers told us that enemies of the people pretended to be good concealing their real self and in reality were trying to do harm to the Soviet power. Of course, we believed it, in the same way we thought Stalin was infallible. We believed in the Communist Party. We were raised in the communist ideology. I remember reading about the murder of Kirov 19 in a district newspaper in 1934 and felt indignant about how treacherous enemies of the people were. We were raised patriots. We read books in which the Soviet regime was presented as the best ever, the most humane. We also watched patriotic movies.
We had a nice Ukrainian teacher of chemistry and physics. We liked her and her classes. We noticed that she always had red eyes from crying. Once she couldn't hold back her tears in class. She probably knew what she was up to. One day the director came into the class and said that she happened to be an enemy of the people, a Ukrainian nationalist, and had been arrested. It's not that we believed our director, but we couldn't help thinking: 'How come she can be an enemy of the people?' My classmate Zhenia Skrypnik was the daughter of the chairman of the Gulyaypole village council. She was a smart and nice girl. When her father was arrested, we had a hostile and suspicious attitude towards her.
Our teachers told us that enemies of the people pretended to be good concealing their real self and in reality were trying to do harm to the Soviet power. Of course, we believed it, in the same way we thought Stalin was infallible. We believed in the Communist Party. We were raised in the communist ideology. I remember reading about the murder of Kirov 19 in a district newspaper in 1934 and felt indignant about how treacherous enemies of the people were. We were raised patriots. We read books in which the Soviet regime was presented as the best ever, the most humane. We also watched patriotic movies.
Period
Year
1936
Location
Ukraine
Interview
lev mistetskiy
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