DOMUS PATRIS
Alksnis Yanovich
"He did not sign the Confession..." [2:34]
Son of a Latvian rifleman. His father was the commander of a division and the head of a department for war preparations at General Headquarters Academy. In the winter of 1937, after the second trial against the Trotskyites, mass arrests of military personnel began. On September 17, 1938, his father, Yan Yanovich, was arrested and held in Butyrskaya Prison. He received a sentence of 15 years in the camps with the right to carry on correspondence.
Alksnis Yanovich's Interview
"The fates of those unfortunate innocent people who were repressed was decided by how they reacted to the charges.
Everyone who didn't withstand the torture and the beatings and signed confessions, they were all immediately—well, practically on the following day, or the following week, or in the course of the month—they were all shot. And the majority of them were buried on the Butovo firing range.
But my father was one of the few who did not si...
The content of the entire interview
In this interview Alsknis Eduard Yanovich tells us about one fact which is usually less know to Western people. Not only for civilians but also inside the military organizations there was a great wave of repression going on among senior military officers.
He speaks about the historic devolpment which lead to the establishment of the Soviet Republic, where the "Latvian Riflemen" played a major role, and about the repressions of this movement in ...
Testimonies
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Citizens and Spies
To betray friends for the Motherland [3:58]
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Mikhail Trukhanov
A rare Opportunity [2:35]
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Alksnis Yanovich
"He did not sign the Confession..." [2:34]
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Natalya Zaporozhets
Sealed with Bread [2:48]
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Nikolay Derevtsov
Death and Forgiveness [2:41]
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Vitaly Tukhin
A fateful Funeral Service [2:28]