The Soviet capital was by now the scene of a major and sustained purge of actual and presumed enemies of the leadership , with intelligence workers and foreigners particularly vulnerable to denunciation . Berta Daniel was arrested by the NKVD in March 1937 . She faced trial on 19 November 1937 and was sentenced to eight years in a labour camp . Richard Daniel , who worked in Moscow as a building engineer , would be arrested in February 1938 and die in a labour camp at Kotlas in June 1942 . Her daughter , now aged 21 , was able to pay her a two-hour visit in 1940 . During 1942 Berta Daniel faced another trial , in Novosibirsk . Details are sparse , but the trial concluded with a sentence lasting a further ten years . She was released in Tayshet at the end of 1952 after spending 15 years and 9 months in a succession of labour camps and other centres of detention between Moscow and Vladivostok . She was forcibly persuaded to remain in Tayshet . At some stage , however , she was able to obtain permission to go and live with her daughter , who had grown up while Berta Daniel was in the labour camps , and was now living in Kazan in Tatarstan , still a considerable distance to the east of Moscow
purge
Great Purge
Berta Daniel