It is February 6, 1938, Central Moscow, an apartment not far from the Bolshoye Theatre

and the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the NKVD, a knock at the door.

Solomon Levinson opens the door.

His fate is confronting him in the course of the next hour as the NKVD will take possession

of him and his family will never see him again.

I welcome his great grandson, David Argolyn, whose story of what happens that night, what

it means, is in the September 2023 commentary magazine.

David, congratulations in good evening.

Your great-grandmother, Solomon, he knows the NKVD has come for him.

At that point, he was a family, he was a part of a family that had been participating

in the revolution to throw off the brutality of the Tsarist empire for many hundreds of

years.

His older brother, Mikhail, was very famous in the revolution and Solomon had followed

in his footsteps.

He trained as a lawyer in Moscow, but he was working for the party.

At that point, was he a practicing Jew?

What about his Judaism, his family's Judaism?

Good evening, too.

Good evening, John.

Thank you for having me.

So at that stage, Solomon was not a practicing Jew.

He was a knowing Jew.

...