The Whisperers

285–7, 294–7, 316–69, 435, 436

christening, 44

in communal apartments, 39, 40, 167, 177, 183, 184, 185–6, 204–5

and Communist utopia, 188–90

domestic responsibilities, 324–5

of elite, 276–7

evacuated (1940s), 387, 388–92

in exile, 87–91, 95, 99, 106, 108, 116, 143, 145, 210–11, 216–17, 350, 351, 353, 354, 356, 358–9, 363–4, 462

family life, 11–14, 162–9, 175, 177–9, 228

fear, 352

games, 24–5

in Gulag, 99

homeless, 99

ignorance of Great Terror, 276–7

image of absent parents, 548, 550, 551–2

as informers, 107, 122–6, 124–5, 129, 261

Jewish, 66, 70

‘kulak’, 90, 99, 131, 142–7, 353, 436, 479, 480–81, 656

learning through play, 24

loss of parents, 319, 390– 92

names changed, 316, 327, 342

parents, denunciation, 122–6, 129–30

and parents’ arrest, 208–9, 274–5, 300–305, 307– 8, 309, 313–14, 390–92, 439

and parents’ guilt, 53, 77, 274–5, 307, 322, 342, 344, 345, 347, 444, 445

parents’ history concealed from, 391–2, 646–7, 652, 654

patriarchal families, 53, 77

political indoctrination, 20–22, 24–5, 27, 273– 4

post-war life, 458

poverty, 458

private family housing, 168–9

and relative’s arrest, 300–305

released from orphanages, 547–8

renunciation of parents, 130–32, 300–304, 343–4, 349, 475–7

reunited with parents, 108, 449–54, 544–58, 560, 561–5, 571

rules of listening and talking, 38–40, 254

on the run, 107–10, 343

rural, 126–9

schooldays, 294–8

silenced, 254

social acceptance, desire for, 341, 343, 345–7, 349, 352–3, 354, 355–6

of specialists, 211, 213, 216–17

values, change in, 32–3, 50

See also orphans; Pioneers

children’s homes, orphanages, 99, 316, 317, 329

children released, 547–8

conditions in, 318–19, 320, 335–43