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I got a job as an instructor at the district executive committee. I stayed with my friend and tried to find a vacant apartment. After a year I found one. It was a room in a communal apartment with seven or eight neighbors, but it was a 14-15 square meter room, and I was very happy to get it. Vera lived with me until she got married. Her marriage failed, she got divorced and received an apartment from the plant where she was working.
There was growing anti-Semitism in Kiev. Jews couldn't get an employment; there were meetings to condemn the 'cosmopolitans' [this was the so-called campaign against 'cosmopolitans'] [19] that lasted till 3-4 o'clock in the morning, then there was this doctors' story [the so-called Doctors' Plot] [20], then my Jewish neighbor got arrested - it was scaring. We suffered, but what could we do. I couldn't speak against the general policy because I had a daughter waiting for me at home. Now I come think how could I have possibly managed to bear it all - it was so depressing!
I remember March 1953 when Stalin died. My 15-year-old daughter wrote a patriotic poem about Stalin, but deep in my heart I was glad that he had died. I hoped that things would change for the better. I couldn't forgive him for the war and my husband's death. All people understood that the war was inevitable, so, how could he let the country be unprepared and cause so many deaths.
I got a job at the State Association of Garment Makers where I worked in a guild. We painted shawls, and I was responsible for party activities. My former salary was 3,200 while there I only received 625 rubles.
I became the director of the shop and then I changed to clothes manufacturing. Later I went to make pleated skirts that were in fashion. It was hard work - irons weighed 3-4 kg - but I earned well and worked there until I retired in 1966. I continued to be a member of the Communist Party and was proud of it. I conducted various activities: I spoke at various meetings at schools and higher educational institutions explaining the meaning of the party policy to the students and convincing them to join the rows of communists. I did understand though that there were different people among communists. That chairman of the Oil Industry Trade Unions, for instance, was a communist, but he caused others and me so many problems. There were many others like him.
There was growing anti-Semitism in Kiev. Jews couldn't get an employment; there were meetings to condemn the 'cosmopolitans' [this was the so-called campaign against 'cosmopolitans'] [19] that lasted till 3-4 o'clock in the morning, then there was this doctors' story [the so-called Doctors' Plot] [20], then my Jewish neighbor got arrested - it was scaring. We suffered, but what could we do. I couldn't speak against the general policy because I had a daughter waiting for me at home. Now I come think how could I have possibly managed to bear it all - it was so depressing!
I remember March 1953 when Stalin died. My 15-year-old daughter wrote a patriotic poem about Stalin, but deep in my heart I was glad that he had died. I hoped that things would change for the better. I couldn't forgive him for the war and my husband's death. All people understood that the war was inevitable, so, how could he let the country be unprepared and cause so many deaths.
I got a job at the State Association of Garment Makers where I worked in a guild. We painted shawls, and I was responsible for party activities. My former salary was 3,200 while there I only received 625 rubles.
I became the director of the shop and then I changed to clothes manufacturing. Later I went to make pleated skirts that were in fashion. It was hard work - irons weighed 3-4 kg - but I earned well and worked there until I retired in 1966. I continued to be a member of the Communist Party and was proud of it. I conducted various activities: I spoke at various meetings at schools and higher educational institutions explaining the meaning of the party policy to the students and convincing them to join the rows of communists. I did understand though that there were different people among communists. That chairman of the Oil Industry Trade Unions, for instance, was a communist, but he caused others and me so many problems. There were many others like him.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
sima medved