Komsomol members received direct orders to participate, and may have believed that it was impossible to refuse.32 One later remembered, “once all of the students and teachers who were Komsomol and party members were ordered to surround one of the villages to prevent anyone from escaping while [secret police vans] drove the peasants out of the village to the heated box-cars of the trains waiting to deport them.”33 A teacher recalled that “all teachers were considered helpers in the socialization of the village, so that we were automatically recruited as activists to encourage people to join the
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