Tag #115410 - Interview #83163 (Anatoli Kraemer )

When the Doctors’ Plot [33] began, I was dismissed from work on that day. When the campaign against cosmopolitans [34] was over, the attitude towards Jews did not change in Estonia. There was another stage – deportations in 1948-49, but it had nothing to do with cosmopolitans. Rich peasants and Estonian nationalists were exiled. During the Doctors’ Plot I was not the only Jew who was fired, many were. First, I did not understand that it was the state politics, not something directed against me. I was just a Jew, and was supposed to be treated like other Jews. I understood that when I went to the central committee of the Estonian party, where many of my brothers-in-arms were. They turned their backs on me, being afraid to talk to me. It was very sad.