Silence Was Salvation: Child Survivors of Stalin's Terror and World War II in the Soviet Union

Description

Roughly ten million children were victims of political repression in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era, the sons and daughters of peasants, workers, scientists, physicians, and political leaders considered by the regime to be dangerous to the political order. Ten grown victims, who as children suffered banishment, starvation, disease, anti-Semitism, and trauma resulting from their parents’ condemnation and arrest, now freely share their stories.  The result is a powerful and moving oral history that will profoundly deepen the reader’s understanding of life in the U.S.S.R. under the despotic reign of Joseph Stalin. Contents Acknowledgments Author Note Introduction: I survived. I speak. Chapter One: “If you are interested in this kind of detail, I have remembered for all these years the smell of the perfume she was wearing and the color of her blouse” Chapter Two: “And we began to live there in twenty-six square meters; there were thirteen of us” Chapter Three: “I, you understand, for my generation, . . . we have the psychology of persons devoted to society. We can’t separate ourselves from society” Chapter Four: “I would ride as far as Karabas Station, but then, I don’t recall, I had to go about fifty–sixty kilometers on foot” Chapter Five: “Silence was salvation. That’s what I knew” Chapter Six: “I was so overjoyed that I had found you” Chapter Seven: “The feeling of loneliness has stalked me always” Chapter Eight: “I had a completely non-Soviet worldview” Chapter Nine: “I have dreamed my entire life, for me this would be a great joy to find my relatives” Chapter Ten: “Well, probably, essentially, they destroyed my life, of course” Appendix I: Amendments to Criminal Code (Decree of December 1, 1934) Appendix II: Excerpt from NKVD Operational Order 00447 Appendix III: Operational Order No. 00486 Chronology Selected Glossary of Names, Places, and Institutions Index