Tag #155819 - Interview #94794 (Semyon Tilipman )

In the 1930s Torgsin stores 8 were open in Odessa selling food products for gold and foreign currency. At the same time people were not allowed to deal with foreign currency in private. They were arrested and persecuted for foreign currency operations. My father was doing better at his work and decided to buy few dollars to keep them as savings. He bound then in carton. Our kitchen door led to the attic of an adjoining house. There was carton in place of glass in this door and my father kept his dollars in this carton. The person who sold these dollars to my father reported on him. He stayed in prison 24 hours. He never told us what they did to him there. NKVD 9 employees convoyed him home and he showed them his hiding place. They took away my father’s dollars. This was called in Odessa the ‘gold fever’ and took place in 1932–1933s. Many people were arrested on false charges.