Witness: Derevtsov, Nikolay Ivanovich, historian. Biographical note: Incarcerated in 1940, and sentenced to death for his critics to the economic reform, shooting was commuted to 10 years in prison. The penalty was serving constructions in the Camps 500 and 505 (Gobi Desert). Background: In 1940 Nikolay was a very ingenuous student, and when the investigator caused him to talk, he said that Stalin made many mistakes: for the aim of collectivization he had destroyed the villages, and the effects were awful, hunger and poverty. And in his opinion Stalin was also guilty for the annihilation of the General Staff and Field Officers during Word War II, ignoring the signals of the intelligence about a cluster of German troops at the frontier. Nikolay was asked to write all this down... and he received the highest measure – the death sentence. The interview: In the part of the interview presented here, Nikolay Derevtsov remembers a lunch, where the oldest of the NKVD (acronym in Russian for Commissariat of the People for the Internal Affairs, which absorbed the functions of the State Political Direction – GPU – in 1934) officers, already drunk, said on how they killed people drowning them in a hole smashed into the ice of the Irtysh River – in a terrible winter frost. However priests and monks were different, the officer said: “Most people resisted and swore, but priests behaved in a different way. A priest approached the ice-hole, crossed himself and said: “Let God forgive you, because you don’t know what you are doing”. After this, he took off his cassock and stepped into the ice-hole without any resistance, any grumble – anything.”
Archpriest Mikhail Trukhanov: Faith overcomes all difficulties [2:35] Witness: Trukhanov, Mikhail, Archpriest Biographical note: Mikhail came back to faith after he received a letter from his father who was in the Kolyma Camp at that time, and in the ‘40s, at the age of 24, he was incarcerated because he studied the Bible with other students and attended the Cathedral of Jelokhovskij. He spent sixteen years in prison, surviving to hard labor and punishments in the “ice cell”.
Background: Once they had taken power in Russia, the Bolsheviks attempted to erase the concept of the Divine Creation from mass consciousness. By taking advantage of the ignorance of the people, the new authorities gave free reign to the darkest of human instincts, thus justifying theft and murder by means of “revolutionary awareness.” On May 1, 1919, Lenin sent to Dzerzhinsky, chief of the VCK, later called CK (acronym in Russian for All-Russian Extraordinary Commission Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage), the following secret order: "...we must put an end to priests and religions as soon as possible. Priests shall be arrested as counterrevolutionaries and saboteurs, and they shall be shot mercilessly, in all places and as many as possible. It is time to close down the Church.” Hundreds of thousands of believers from the territory of the former Soviet Union accepted their persecution with humility, courageously bore every burden and they were genuine witnesses and confessors of the Christian faith. In the years of persecution, the clergy took upon themselves the brunt of the attack of the horrible God-fighting force, but they did not betray their ministerial duties.
The interview: Archpriest Mikhail Trukhanov is an outstanding example of perseverance, faith, humility: he is the hero of one of Domus Patris documentaries – “Thy Will be done” –available also in the English edition. In this piece of interview, he tells us how one time it was possible for him to get the Mass and the Holy Communion, in prison, at risk of his life.
Elda Veselova: The Fate of the Children [3:04] Witness: Veselova, Elda, born in exile Biographical note: When they were students, her father and mother began attending a Trotskyite group’s meetings. After Trotsky was named an enemy of the Revolution, Trotskyites were arrested throughout the country. Her parents were arrested in 1928 and sent in exile to Uzbekistan. There, in 1930, Elda was born. Her father was executed in exile. Background: The Soviet government looked after neglected children and orphans – and there were many of them since the beginning, after the Civil War – giving them shelter, food, a profession and a start in the world. The children knew only that the authorities were taking care of them. But they never guessed that they were left orphans because of that very same caring government, since if there hadn’t been the revolution, the parents of these little thieves and vagrants would not have died. Later, when mass arrests began, children whose parents were targeted by the repression were taken away to an orphanage if no close relatives were willing to take them in. More often than not, no relatives were found – it was dangerous, and there were additional expenses. These special orphanages were almost like prisons, with bad food and bad tutors and supervisors. Of course, under such conditions, the children suffered, they did not receive any love or care. Many who weren’t able to handle the constant pressure began to believe that their parents were enemies and disavowed their unfortunate mothers and fathers, genuinely feeling a sense of guilt for their “crimes.” For many years, they tried to earn the government’s forgiveness. Very young children were given new first and last names and they were raised along with other “clean” Soviet children. This was the appearance of Soviet humanism. The parents, if they were able to stay alive and be released, were then unable to find their child…
The interview: The touching interview of Elda Veselova is just a confirmation of this cruel reality. She tells us the story of a group of small children who were transported away and later died under dubious circumstances. Nobody ever found out the real truth.
