Tag #151875 - Interview #101527 (Frida Khatset)

I was leader of the Komsomol unit at the plant. I was responsible for political information and issuance of the plant newspaper. I also conducted classes for rabfak students, who were 12-14 year old children from occupied areas. They had lost their parents. I worked with the administration to resolve the issue of making provisions for these children and patronized them at the hostel. Management of the plant was pushing me to submit an application to join the Party, but I realized already that I wasn’t going to do that and just said that I needed time to grow to this level. I remembered 1937 well and lost faith in our leadership. There was an episode that proved my doubts to have grounds. I was a foreman at a shop and worked a night shift once. There were toxic chemical wastes in this shop. It was the last day of the month. Something went wrong with the conditioning system and the shop stopped its operations. Deputy director said to me ‘Recharge galvanic basins and load equipment since we disable the assembly line to continue their operations’.  The 1st ship was responsible for this situation since they had to fix the equipment to support safe work conditions. It was a major violation of safety rules to recharge galvanic basins when the exhaust air funnel did not function, but I was still given an order to recharge the basin with a gas mask on. I removed all personnel except one worker to assist me. We recharged the basins. It usually took 1.5-2 hours to complete this process, but upon completion it was necessary to air the shop, but the air ventilation did not function. The worst thing was that there was potassium cyanide there that generated prussic acid. After recharge I had to close and seal potassium cyanide, but my gas mask glasses got fogged up. Since I couldn’t see anything I tried to feel the seal with my hands, but I couldn’t determine whether it was sealed or no. I had to make sure that this was done properly; if this had been done improperly I might have had to stand in court. I shifted my gas mask for an instant to make sure that it was sealed and headed to the exit. At that time there were blackouts required and when I opened the door the blackout was perpetrated: that was why they found me promptly. I fainted and recovered my conscience when two ambulance crews were giving me first medical aid. From the point of view of production needs this order was correct while from the point of view of health safety it wasn’t. I was severely poisoned and the management knew it was their fault. They sent me to recreation house for managerial personnel located near Kuibyshev. I had a room there and personnel brought me food into the room: sugar, butter, fruit and vegetables, and I thought I got all this food because I was ill. When I got better I went to the canteen one morning and saw tables covered with snow-white tablecloths and plenty of food on the tables that we hadn’t seen since the war began. There were few women sitting at tables. It was the same at lunchtime and in the evening high-rank men came to dinner. They had dinner and stayed overnight and went to work in the morning. That was when I realized what kind of life officials led. The war revealed that there was one truth for our leadership and another truth – for people.   

After I returned my management insisted that I submitted my application to the Party. I just had to do it or otherwise I might have been suspected of having  anti-Soviet opinions. My application was approved by the plant Party unit meeting. Then at the end of April I left for Kiev and I never showed this approved application to any other authorities. Some of my acquaintances were devoted Bolsheviks. They sincerely believed in wonderful communist slogans that promised beautiful life in the near future…