deeply depressed by the realisation that we would have to remain residents of Vitebsk permanently, because it was difficult to move even from one city to another. We were also very unhappy about having been compelled to takeon Soviet citizenship. Most of us had gone to Russia only with the intention of sitting out the storm and then returning home to our near and dear ones, to our own towns and shtetls. And suddenly, without being asked whether that was what we wanted, we were issued with regular Soviet passports valid for half a year. The compulsion made everything look bad.
Vitebsk became the point of concentration of all the refugees in eastern Belorussia, because they were not allowed to stay in Minsk. Vitebsk is the second-largest city in Belorussia. All the refugees who came there were dissatisfied, particularly those who arrived from small towns and villages where conditions were worse. In Vitebsk, however, they experienced bitter disappointment. The city soviet refused to register them and give [32] them work. Nowhere were they allowed in to sleep. They had to […] in the street, or at bestin the railway station.
In December 1939, a big campaign began around the elections to the cityand regional soviets and the Supreme Soviet (in Russian: gorodskiye, rayonnye i verkhovnye sovyeti).302 Large meetings took place. The city was decorated with flags and pictures of Stalin. Mass meetings were held in the factories. Candidates were put forward. First and foremost – as if pre-arranged and self-evident – Stalin. As far as I remember, older people were not seen at the meetings; only young people, who came to watch the film that was shown at the end of the meeting. The public mostly used to stand in the corridors or chew seeds until the film was shown, and pressed into the hall only after the speaker had finished reading his speech from the paper, had shouted exclamations of praise to the great Stalin, and announced the screening of the film. I did not witness the actual elections in Vitebsk because by that time I was already in Minsk.
The Journey Home
Discontent among the refugees kept growing. We thought constantly about a way out of the increasingly stifling atmosphere. Each of us faced the question:
