Date
Author
Наталья ШКУРЕНОК; Санкт-Петербург
Source
Preserved copy
Translated material
A silent cry for help
A monument to the victims of the “deaf-mute case” was unveiled in St. Petersburg
The quietest opening of the monument took place yesterday at the Levashovsky Memorial Cemetery in St. Petersburg. All that could be heard was the rustling of fallen leaves and the quiet sobs of people who came to honor the memory of the leaders of the city society of the deaf, who were shot in December 1937. In complete silence, a white sheet fell and “talking” hands appeared on the smooth marble surface. They didn't just talk, they screamed - this gesture in the language of the deaf means a cry for help.The speeches made were also quiet, and each word was dubbed by two sign language interpreters. The president of the St. Petersburg regional branch of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf, Olga Novoselova, called for remembering by name all the victims whose innocence was proven almost immediately after their execution.
The case of the Leningrad deaf-mutes, accused of sabotage, espionage and terrorist activities, is one of the most ridiculous cases fabricated by the NKVD in 1937. More than 50 people who communicated with each other using gestures and did not speak foreign languages were accused of creating a fascist terrorist organization associated with the German consulate in Leningrad. Allegedly, this organization recruited supporters at defense industry enterprises. Deaf people were accused of planning to assassinate party leaders during the May Day demonstration and on November 7 - simultaneously in Moscow and Leningrad. The material evidence in the case included a Browning revolver (one!) and many photographs - street sketches, portraits of members of the deaf society. By decision of the special troika of the NKVD of the Leningrad Region, 35 people, mainly the leaders of the Leningrad Society of the Deaf, were shot on December 24, 1937. The rest - 20 people - were sent to forced labor camps.
The entire leadership of the society, employees of the House of Culture for the Deaf: teachers, artists, photographers, engineers and technical workers, highly qualified workers, were involved in the “case of the deaf and dumb” - this is exactly how it is designated in the documents of the NKVD. The monstrous sentence passed may be explained by the prejudice of the Leningrad security officers towards disabled people in general. It is known that a year later the leadership of the NKVD in Moscow and the Moscow region called for “taking into account the experience of Leningrad in the extermination of disabled people.”
The executioners, however, traditionally for the times of Stalin’s terror did not survive their victims for long. The case of the deaf was fabricated under the leadership of the head of the OBKhSS department of justice of Leningrad, Jan Krause, who was already arrested on March 15, 1939 for “gross violations of socialist legality.” During Krause's interrogations, surviving members of the deaf community, who simply did not have time to be sent to the camps, testified. A sign language interpreter hired by the authorities also acted as a witness and told how investigators used torture to extract confessions from disabled people. The cases against those sent to the camp were closed in 1940. The executed leaders of the deaf society, despite their innocence being proven in court at the same time, were rehabilitated only in December 1955.
The authors of the monument unveiled at the memorial in Levashovskaya Pustosh, designer Vladimir Sychev and artist Boris Novoselov, both today work in the St. Petersburg Deaf Society, the successor to the organization destroyed in 1937. “We thought for a long time about how to make it immediately clear that this is a monument specifically to deaf people,” says Ms. Novoselova. — We discussed the sketches with members of the society and other artists. We really wanted to have time to erect a monument to the 70th anniversary of the tragedy last year, but then it didn’t work out.”