In our project, “Gulag. Witnesses.” we uncover the widely unknown tragic fates of individuals who suffered from Stalin’s terror, and whose unique stories were kept in families for decades. For one of our episodes, we recorded an interview with Aelita and Lyuba Fitingof about their aunt Rosa whose life story can be representative of many other victims of Stalin’s communist regime. She was a true revolutionary in heart and believed deeply in the utopian ideas of communism. Uncommonly to the ordinary Soviet citizen, she married a foreigner, Abaninath Mukherji, the co-founder of the communist party of India. He was a very charming gentleman and they had a chance to build a family with two children; a son named Gora and a daughter named Maya. Despite being loyal to the ideas of communism, they were repressed during the Great Purge year of 1937 and became “the enemies of the soviet nation”. Abaninath Mukherji was executed and Aunt Rosa was sent to Gulag for ten years. After living with different foster families, their son Gora died from meningitis. Only their daughter Maya was able to survive Stalin’s era and after a decade managed to find her mom – Aunt Rosa. Until the end of her life, Rosa remained faithful to the ideas of communism and loyal to Stalin. She firmly believed that all the harm she had suffered was the result of the mistakes of others in the system, but the Stalinist regime was not responsible for this.
