Valery Dunaevsky

A Daughter of the Enemy of the People Valery Dunaevsky

The title of my book A Daughter of the 'Enemy of the People' reflects a situation of the 1930's in the USSR when in the height of the Stalin purges millions of the innocent people were arrested and labeled 'The Enemies of the people.' My maternal grandfather happened to be one of the hapless victims of that witch hunt.

In the book I am addressing the related events of the Stalin repressions, WWII, Holocaust, emigration from the USSR and immigration to the USA. The book is dedicated to my late mother, 19202010, and her life is shown in connection with mine and some of my other relatives. Particularly I am outlining there my maternal grandmother who was a free lance playwright and poetess. Also, the book gave me an opportunity to highlight the image of my maternal uncle Vitold Shmulian. He was a mathematics doctor who served as an artillery officer in the Soviet Army, and despite the hardship of war he was able to continue his mathematical studies. And literally from the trenches of war he sent his treatises back into the USSR academy of science. He was killed at the liberation of Warsaw. He is still well known in the mathematical circles. His name could be found in the Internet. (His name can also be found under the title The theorem of Krein-Shmulian).

My mother was from Odessa and father was from Rostov-on -Don where they lived before the war. In October of 1941 they were able to escape the approaching German army. Rostov was taken by the Germans on Nov. 21 but in few days it was recaptured by the Soviet Army. During their stay in Rostov, the Nazis immediately initiated anti-Jewish actions, but they were small in scale. In July of 1942 Rostov fell to Germans the second time. At that time the mass atrocities were committed against Jewish population and against many other segments of civil population and prisoners of war. My book captures some of these events.

One of the main goals of the book is to show interesting and good people (who happened to be my relatives) and who could serve as role models for younger generation.