Tag #116273 - Interview #100288 (Eta Gurvichuyte )

I was fond of reading. It was hard to get books. Usually people gave people to one another and they became dog-eared. We were subscribed to magazines, got some novices. Later on independent publishes appeared, where we could read the books censored by Soviet regime and information about Israel. I started retyping the books illegitimately brought from abroad. I made one copy for me and for my friends. I was mostly interested in the objective information about Israel as it was the period of six-day war [23], and Soviet mass media stigmatized Israel. Besides, I collected quotations of great people about Jews. It was the period when I had to take my final exams in the University and write my diploma paper. I took a vacation for students and got ready for the exams with my Lithuanian friend. Suddenly, somebody ran on the door and I saw two men on the threshold who showed me their KGB IDs [24]. They rather politely invited me to come with them. My friend was shocked. I had been interrogated for couple of hours. It turned out that there was a stooge from one the arrested readers. Since adolescence I had known the word ‘no’. I persistently denied that I was not involved in dissemination of anti-Soviet literature. I confirmed that I collected the quotations of famous people about Jews as I being a true Jew was interested in everything connected with my nature. I was lucky that there was no search at home. I stored a lot of banned literature. If it was found, neither I nor my son would be spared. I was taken home in the morning. Then I had no wish to study and take final exams. Thus, five years of studies were futile – I had not defended my thesis.