Tag #156020 - Interview #94776 (Grigoriy Stelmakh)

Then the so-called ‘zolotukha’ began, when at the direction of authorities people had to give away all money and gold. We still remember a sad anecdote of this period: ‘Abram was arrested and his wardens were demanding his gold. They kept him in jail for a long time and beat him, but couldn’t pull anything out of him. They changed their tactics and said: ‘You know, we don’t need gold. We are building socialism, but we do not have enough money. If you give us your gold, it will enable us to built socialism faster’. Abram says: ‘Well, this is a different story, but you see, I need to talk with Sarrah since she is the one to decide everything’. They released him and then he came back. ‘So, what did your Sarrah say?’ ‘Sarrah says that if one doesn’t have money one doesn’t build things’. Like in this anecdote my grandfather got arrested, and they demanded gold from him that he never had. They kept him in jail for a long while. When they didn’t get anything from him they declared him a kulak, expropriated his house and deported from Vasilkov. My grandfather and his family moved to Kiev where they settled down in an apartment in Turgenevskaya Street in the center of the city. However, my grandfather couldn’t forget the offense and besides, he was desperately homesick. He left his family and moved back to Vasilkov where his acquaintances accommodated him. He was working in his small garden. In the early 1930s he returned to Kiev. He was severely ill with stomach cancer.