At the “Amazing Cat” Art Center, the premiere screening of two episodes of the multi-part docudrama “The Case of the Executed Pioneers” took place. This film is part of the series “GULAG — Witnesses”, produced by ECGProductions and based on the book by Anna Artemyeva and Elena Racheva, “58th: Unseized”. The role of Susanna Pechuro is played by Lilia Sklyar.
These two episodes recount real events that continue to shock with their cruelty even after more than 75 years. The Soviet system mass-produced fabricated cases, but the trial of “terrorists” — former pioneers — was exceptionally ruthless.
On the defendant’s bench sat 16 boys and girls, 14 of whom were Jewish.
On the night of February 13–14, 1952, the Supreme Court of the USSR delivered the verdict:
“Yevgeny Gurevich, Boris Slutsky, Vladilen Furman are sentenced to the highest measure of punishment — execution by shooting.
Irena Arginskaya, Ida Vinnikova, Felix Voin, Grigory Mazur, Vladimir Melnikov, Ekaterina Panfilova, Susanna Pechuro, Alla Reif, Maya Ulanovskaya, and Inna Elgisser — 25 years of imprisonment.
Tamara Rabinovich, Galina Smirnova, Nina Uflyand — 10 years of imprisonment, followed by exile and a loss of civil rights for five years.”
All these young people were members of the underground organization “Union for the Cause of the Revolution”, whose story began in the Moscow City House of Pioneers in 1949.