Tag #126170 - Interview #83377 (Nina Khlevner )

At that time the Soviet power was introducing the policy of agricultural collectivization [10] and dispossession of the kulaks [11]. It was a terrible time. The villagers starved, and people’s dead bodies lay about in the street in the towns. The authorities began to look for scapegoats. Father, being the only Jew among the managers, found himself under investigation. In 1932 he was arrested and thrown into prison. He was accused of bad supply of food to citizens and organization of starvation, though the superior managers, who ruined the peasantry, should have been held accountable for that. Mother sent me to the militia head. He allowed us to see Father in prison. There was a wooden table and two benches in the meeting-room. I ran to Father. The guard was silent and turned away to the window. Father asked me not to touch him, but I tried to kiss him. In half a year the investigation was over. Father was declared innocent and released. I was eight years old.