Tag #113616 - Interview #78134 (Anna Ivankovitser)

I cried when we heard about Stalin's death. Many people cried over him. We were convinced that he had been doing the right thing regardless of all the hardships and cruelty of reality. Everyone was concerned about what was going to happen. We thought life would be over without Stalin. We didn't know how to live or what to do without him. There was so much faith in Stalin that even the children whose fathers were in prison believed it was true that they were enemies of the people. Some people understood the true state of things, but the majority was blind to the truth. After the Twentieth Party Congress, [15] we had our eyes opened. It was easier for the Jews to believe the truth because we had seen what Stalin did to the Jews. They said that if he hadn't died all of us would have been deported like the Chechen or Tatar people. [The interviewee is referring to the policy of forced deportation to Siberia.] [16] God protected us.