Tag #151873 - Interview #101527 (Frida Khatset)

I didn’t face anti-Semitism before the Great Patriotic War. I was a member of the trade union committee at the University. The trade union group was responsible for supporting students living in the hostel and making arrangements for their stay in recreation centers, - active Komosmol members and those that were a success in their studies went there. Students also had to participate in parades at Kreschatik 20 on November holidays [November 7] and on 1 May. By the way, the district Komsomol committee required that we came to the gathering spot 3 hours before a parade began. Because three hours prior to demonstration blocked all central part of city, transport did not go and to a place of the beginning of procession passed nobody.

While we were taking part in peaceful parades Jews were already exterminated in dozens of German and Austrian towns. There were rumors spread about the situation there, the first rumors appeared in 1940. Some people listened secretly to foreign radio channels and shared these bits of information with others.  The Soviet radio kept silent in this regard and newspapers didn’t publish anything like this.

In 1939 when Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact 21 was executed when in 1940 the Baltic Republics and Ukraine joined the USSR newspapers described these events as great progress and strengthening of our borders. And the fact of Western Ukraine 22 joining the Soviet part of it was described and a great and happy event. We believed that it was true, this reunification of the nation.