Tag #151872 - Interview #101527 (Frida Khatset)

The children of Postyshev 19 studied at our school and Valentin, his older son, was in my class. There were children of officials of the Town and Regional Party committees and Central Committee of the Communist Party. In 1937 parents of many children were arrested. Their children were orphaned. Valentin Postyshev also became an orphan. We finished school in June 1937. I remember our prom: there was a ceremony at the concert hall and then we walked in the city that whole night singing. We were together until dawn. Valentin Postyshev entered the University. His father was in prison already and Valentin was expelled when he was a first-year student in 1938. He disappeared and I don’t know what happened to him further on.  I remember the situation in 1937 well. As I already mentioned my father’s brother Boris was arrested at that time. We knew that Boris was no traitor and that it was a campaign against intellectuals. My father had more information, but he didn’t share it with us. He suspected that human rights were violated in courts, but never ever mentioned it. We witnessed something horrible when best professional, innocent people were declared ‘enemies of the people’. My brothers and I knew that under no circumstances we could talk about it at school. Teachers and other pupils kept silent, too. There was a lot of fear. Our father explained to us that such discussions might lead to arrest. In 1938 he retired from his position of Head of Legal department and took to advocacy.

I entered the Faculty of Chemistry in Kiev University in September 1937 without any problems. Since I had the highest grades in all subjects at school I just submitted my school certificate to the University and was admitted. There were Ukrainian, Russian and Jewish students at our faculty and the latter were in minority. We got along well and had no conflicts. This was the period when lecturers were required to teach in Ukrainian while many were used to read their lectures in Russian. Academician Yaglovskiy, our lecturer, usually asked us ‘You will not report on me to the Dean, will you?’ and continued speaking Russian.