Tag #151514 - Interview #77988 (rachel persitz)

It was in 1937 when arrests of leading party and government officials began. [The interviewee is referring to the Great Terror.] [16] The authorities also arrested common people. One word or joke was enough to make accusations against innocent people.

We read in newspapers and heard on the radio about the arrests of political leaders. We, Komsomol members, had ultimate trust in the Soviet power, but we were shocked and didn't know what to believe anymore. We thought that it was true if newspapers wrote about such things, because we thought the Soviet power wouldn't lie to its people. Our university lecturers also suffered from repression. At some time we even had a visiting lecturer from Moscow to teach us, because there were no specialists left at the university. Yanolskiy, a history teacher, another history teacher, both Jews, a geography teacher and many others were arrested. They were accused of the distortion of the guidelines of the party and the government, betrayal of communist ideas and God knows what other sins. These were all talented teachers and honest and true party members. Some of them came back, others vanished in Stalin's camps.