DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Boris Melamed. Full, unedited interview about his father, 2009 ID LA021.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4j09w57r ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN TABLE OF CONTENTS ITEM TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION 2 CITATION & RIGHTS 8 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 1/8 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Boris Melamed. Full, unedited interview about his father, 2009 ID LA021.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4j09w57r ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN TRANSCRIPT ENGLISH TRANSLATION —Today is March 12, 2009. We are in Los Angeles meeting the son of a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Please introduce yourself and tell us what you know about your father and your older brother, who also served at the front. Please tell us the story of your family. My name is Boris Melamed and I came to the United States of America, to Los Angeles, in 1992. I came with my family, followed by my younger brother and his family in 1995. In 1997 my older brother, a veteran of the Soviet armed forces, also came. He graduated from the Leningrad Hydrometeorological Academy and worked in the Far North around Novaya Zemlya and Norilsk. He was the chief of the meteorological service for his division when it took part in hydrogen bomb testing. Of course, he was already unwell when he came here, but America gave him an extra ten years of fairly good and healthy life. He passed away in 2007 and we buried him in Los Angeles. I came to tell you about my father. Today I am also a member of the Los Angeles Association of World War II Veterans. I followed my brother’s example and joined the association when full membership was extended to the children and widows of veterans. In 2002 I became a member and in 2003 I was the head of a committee working to erect a memorial. To keep my father’s memory, I have tried to help and will continue to help. I want to tell you about my father and the rest of my family. My father was born in 1910 in Rechitsa [Rechytsa], Gomel Oblast, Belarus. He first studied at the Klintsy trade school, where he met my mother . Klintsy is in Bryansk Oblast. They were married there. This was in 1930. My older brother was born in 1931. After graduating from trade school, my father went on to the Ivanovo Energy Institute. I was born in 1937, but unfortunately at that time my father was arrested. He was deemed an enemy of the people. Eight months before that my grandfather, Shevel Melamed, was also arrested in Rechitsa. At that time he was the chief mechanic at a match factory and he was arrested as an enemy of the people. After that our whole family suffered the fate of those targeted by repression. After graduating from the Energy Institute in Ivanovo my father worked at a peat-fueled power plant about 30 kilometers outside Ivanovo. He was a Stakhanovite, a model worker. At twenty-seven he was already the chief of the turbine room. For his outstanding work he was awarded with a trip to the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy in Leningrad. After he returned from Leningrad a week later, he was put in handcuffs right at the train station and brought to the power station. During his absence a big accident had taken place there and investigators were already on the scene, along with the NKVD. They could not figure out the cause of the accident. They brought my father to the power plant and said, “Moisey, take a look and report to us on the cause of the accident.” 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 2/8 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Boris Melamed. Full, unedited interview about his father, 2009 ID LA021.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4j09w57r ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN By the end of second day my father figured out the cause of the accident and made his report. He was accused of knowing about the possibility of an accident and saying nothing. There were twenty people sentenced in all, starting with the director and chief engineer. My father and his friend, both relatively young, were caught up in this. The rest were a bit older and they could not tolerate the torture and signed a whole series of false statements in exchange for family visits. As a result all of them were shot. But my father and his friend, who were physically strong, were able to withstand the torture and were released fourteen months later. Of course you can imagine the sort of letters my mother wrote to Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, we still have them in our family archive. The case was closed. When the Great Patriotic War broke out in 1941, my father understood the potential repercussions for his sons, my brother Isaak and me, in the conditions of the USSR, so he volunteered for the front despite having a draft exemption. He was sent near Moscow under the command of future general Ioffe. A special forces brigade dealing with top secret technology was being assembled. They trained for three months and then were sent to the front. The Soviet forces were retreating at the time, abandoning Kharkov [Kharkiv]. The top-secret equipment consisted of radio-controlled mines, something the Germans did not yet possess. There is a building in Kharkov known as the Kosior House where all the members of the oblast party committee and the Central Committee stayed when they visited. They knew that when the Germans took a city, the generals lived in prestigious houses like that. His brigade was ordered to mine the house in such a way that the Germans would not find anything. This mine could not be allowed to fall into Germans hands under any circumstances so that the enemy would not know that the Soviet Union had such technology. They buried the mine 5 meters under the basement floor, and put another, conventional, mine 2 meters under the floor, counting on the Germans finding the higher one. This was done to lull them into a sense of security. The operation was a success. The Germans really did find the top mine and allowed General von Braun to take up residence in that house. After our intelligence reported that, a radio signal was sent 30 kilometers outside of Kharkov, blowing the General and the building sky-high. This is one of the stories that my father would tell me when we met up. There is a book, published by the Marshall of Engineering Forces Kharchenko, titled “Special Forces.” All the materials for the book were gathered by my father and his comrades in arms. The title refers to that brigade they were in the entire war. My father was in General Ioffe’s brigade. Here is a postcard that is important to me, a greeting with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Victory. This is a small photo attached, it is my father and his fellow soldiers posing at the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945. General Ioffe knew my father's history, knew that his mother and younger sister stayed in Rechitsa. They could not evacuate because there were no men to help. My grandfather died in the camps and my father was at the front. Ioffe gave him a car and twenty soldiers to go visit. This was not far from Rechitsa. Ioffe said, “Moisey, I understand how your heart hurts.” He approached the ruins of his childhood home. He understood that something had happened to his loved ones, even though he had no news from them. He saw that a faint 2021 © BLAVATNIK ARCHIVE FOUNDATION PG 3/8 BLAVATNIKARCHIVE.ORG DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ITEM TRANSCRIPT Boris Melamed. Full, unedited interview about his father, 2009 ID LA021.interview PERMALINK http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4j09w57r ITEM TYPE VIDEO ORIGINAL LANGUAGE RUSSIAN light in the house across the street. He knocked and an old woman opened the door. He recognized her and asked if she knew anything. She was their Belarusian neighbor. She said that when the Germans came they took his mother and younger sister. There was a ghetto set up at the school house. Later they were shot there. Then he asked her, “Do you know who are speaking to?” She had not recognized him in uniform. When he introduced himself, she fainted and he had to revive her. And here's the last story from the war. The High Command received information that the Reichstag had been mined. The Germans, knowing that they had lost the war, wanted to blow up the Reichstag. Their unit was sent to Berlin with the front-line unit to de- mine the Reichstag. They entered the Reichstag before the medics had even arrived. He said that as they entered different rooms looking for mines, they found German generals lying in pools of blood on their desks. They committed suicide, knowing that nothing good awaited them in captivity. They were able to clear the mines and he was given the proper military decorations for doing so. General Ioffe tried to get my father to stay in the service because he needed trustworthy people in his secret technology unit. My father did not want to stay because he had a respectable civilian trade. He returned to Ivanovo and worked at the Scientific Research Institute. He passed away in 1984 at the age of 74. He had described the story of the Melamed family, including the events of the Holocaust.