Tag #114869 - Interview #95544 (Emiliya Israilovna Shulman)

In 1950 I graduated from school and left for Leningrad to enter the Pedagogical Institute named after Gertzen. I wanted to continue Rykunov’s work and teach literature at school. However, in Leningrad great disappointment awaited me. Here anti-Semitism was already widespread. An acquaintance of my uncle’s, who worked as the assistant head of the publishing house of the Academy of Science, interviewed me. He explained to me that there were “conditions whereby Jews shouldn’t be allowed to university in general, including the literature department of the pedagogical institute as ‘Jews can’t teach Russian literature.” The history department was also better left forgotten, and I turned my documents in to the geography department. This was a great loss for me, but I couldn’t risk anything as Mama was in jail. On the advice of my relatives, I hid that fact, saying that I was an orphan.