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Between 1937 and 1938, Soviet leader Josef Stalin carried out his most severe purge in Georgia.

Known as the Great Terror, thousands of political rivals, intellectuals and ordinary citizens were executed without trial and buried in mass graves.

Dan Hardoon speaks to Levan Pesvianidze in Tbilisi, Georgia, whose grandfather Viktor and uncle Giorgi were both executed.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

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(Photo: Viktor Pesvianidze with colleagues in Georgia in the 1930s. Credit: Levan Pesvianidze)