Tag #113149 - Interview #78233 (Boris Dorfman)

I witnessed another tragic event in Kishinev. Many Moldavian and Ukrainian families were deported from their homes during this period [1947-1949]. They were wealthy families who worked hard to make a decent living. After the Great Patriotic War they recovered their wealth, but they didn't want to join collective farms. I don't think they really had much to give away at that time, but the state wanted to take away their grain stocks. I was to be the representative of my company responsible for collecting grain stocks. There were two NKVD officers to escort me and we were to go to the villagers, who were told that resisting to deliver food supplies made them enemies of the Soviet power. NKVD officers had the list of villagers and I was just supposed to attend these actions. If a family wasn't at home we went to another house. Families were taken by cattle transportation trains. They were given no time to get ready for the trip. I don't know exactly where they were taken - I believe, somewhere to the north. I never met anybody who returned home from there. It was the period of a horrific famine. People were starving to death. There were many dead people in towns and villages.