Selected text
And I went to work at the Chemical and Pharmaceutical College.
There I worked 5 years. But before I went there, I made an attempt to return to the Institute of Toxicology, where I worked earlier. I did not go to its personnel department; I addressed my former laboratory head directly. He said ‘You’d better find some other place to work now, but when it becomes easier from the certain viewpoint, I’ll call you, and you will come.’ It was absolutely clear for me what he was talking about: at that time they were not permitted to take Jews.
He called me 5 years later (in 1964), during the so called Khruschev Thaw [12]. I came to the Institute and worked there till 1979. I had the right to retire on pension at the age of 45 (because we worked with chemical agents dangerous to health, though pension age in the USSR and in Russia was 55), but I worked 14 years more. I came across no manifestations of anti-Semitism: I worked under very pleasant conditions, though I knew that it was practically impossible for a Jew to find work in our Institute.
There I worked 5 years. But before I went there, I made an attempt to return to the Institute of Toxicology, where I worked earlier. I did not go to its personnel department; I addressed my former laboratory head directly. He said ‘You’d better find some other place to work now, but when it becomes easier from the certain viewpoint, I’ll call you, and you will come.’ It was absolutely clear for me what he was talking about: at that time they were not permitted to take Jews.
He called me 5 years later (in 1964), during the so called Khruschev Thaw [12]. I came to the Institute and worked there till 1979. I had the right to retire on pension at the age of 45 (because we worked with chemical agents dangerous to health, though pension age in the USSR and in Russia was 55), but I worked 14 years more. I came across no manifestations of anti-Semitism: I worked under very pleasant conditions, though I knew that it was practically impossible for a Jew to find work in our Institute.
Period
Location
Leningrad
Russia
Interview
Emma Balonova