page_title: David Petrovsky
section_title: A failed escape
hierarchical_section_title: David Petrovsky / Biography / A failed escape
caption_attribution_description: English: David Petrovsky (prison photo), 1937
context_page_description: David Petrovsky — a member of the Central Committee of the Jewish Socialist Federation of America, a member of the Socialist Party of America, the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, journalist, political and economic scientist, a member of the Central Committee of the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia until 1919, a member of the Central Council of Ukraine, the statesman of the Soviet Union.
  Throughout his life Petrovsky used the following names: Goldfarb, Bennett, Humboldt, Brown. Each of these names corresponds to a specific period of his life and work.
context_section_description: David Petrovsky was aware of the danger emerging in the Soviet Union following the murder of Sergei Kirov in 1934, the assassination that functioned as the catalyst for the Great Purge.
  In the summer of 1936 his London-born wife Rose Cohen went to London but was not permitted to make the trip with her son Alyosha, so he stayed behind. Her sister Nellie thought that Rose was "unhappy, and had it not been for Alyosha might not have returned".
  At that time David Petrovsky planned on a business trip to America and got a permission to travel abroad from his supervisor Sergo Ordzhonikidze - the head of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy and the head of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the Soviet Union. Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who knew Stalin closely, more than anyone else, saw what was happening in the country. Anticipating his fate, he wanted to save D. Petrovsky from the Stalin’s terror and understood that he most likely would not return from a business trip. It seems that David and Rosa hoped to use their travels as an opportunity to leave almost simultaneously from the country and be saved. However, they had failed to acquire an exit visa for their son, and unwilling to leave without him, they remained in the Soviet Union.
caption: David Petrovsky (a prison photo), 1937
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