Chanan Poltinnikov
1896 – 1938
Agronomist, Agro-Joint, Dnepropetrovsk
Chanan Poltinnikov was a member of an Agro-Joint collective farm and head of a poultry farm. He was arrested by the NKVD in 1938 and was charged with “Zionist propaganda and espionage activities and the training of specialists for Palestine.” Poltinnikov was sentenced to death and executed in 1938. He was “rehabilitated” (his name was officially cleared) in 1958.
Extended Profile
Chanan Moiseevich Poltinnikov was born in Gorki, Mogilev gubernia (today Belarus) in 1896. An agronomist and Agro-Joint staff member, he lived and worked in the Dnepropetrovsk Region (today Ukraine). He was a member of an Agro-Joint collective farm named after Lenin and head of the Krivorog Stroi Poultry Farm. He planned to set up his own agricultural farm with a loan from Agro-Joint. Poltinnikov was arrested on March 10, 1938, by the NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs). He was charged with “Zionist propaganda and espionage activities and the training of specialists for Palestine.” On April 11, 1938, he was sentenced to death, with all of his personal property to be confiscated, by the NKVD Troika of the Dnepropetrovsk oblast. He was executed on April 29, 1938. Poltinnikov was “rehabilitated” on August 15, 1958, by the Military Tribunal of the Kiev Military District.
Sources
GADO (The State Archives of the Dnepropetrovsk Oblast).
Interview with Alexander Kantor, grandson of Chanan Poltinnikov, JDC Jerusalem, June 2009.
Mitsel, Mikhail. “The Final Chapter: Agro-Joint Workers – Victims of the Great Terror in the USSR, 1937-1940.” Eastern European Jewish Affairs, Vol. 39, No. 1, April 2009.