Selected text
My mother found out that I was in Yenakiyevo and wanted to come and visit me, but she wasn't allowed to leave her work. Then she got a chance by accident. Two majors, who had lost their legs, needed an escort to return to Russia. My hospital was near where they lived in Russia. It was a difficult mission with lots of arrangements to be made on the way, and nobody wanted to take it. The director of the hospital suggested that my mother went. She agreed, but her condition was to have a statement reading, 'Visiting Yenakiyevo to meet her wounded son', written in her route document. The director of the hospital didn't agree with it but she insisted that he did what she was asking for. She escorted both majors home - they were miserable people. She came to Yenakiyevo, and I was released from hospital.
We went to Tbilisi, but I didn't feel at home there. We decided to go to Kiev. We weren't awaited by anyone. Our place had been destroyed, and we didn't have a place to live. It was a good thing that I kept my passport during my mobilization to the army. It was a hectic moment at the military office. There were many recruits, and they all submitted their passports to have them replaced with military identity cards. The clerk sitting at his table had heaps of passports scattered on the floor around him. He probably thought that these soldiers wouldn't need their passports later on. I put my passport into my pocket when he wasn't looking and thus managed to keep it. It wasn't a good idea to have one's passport during the war. If the Germans had ever captured me and seen that I was a Jew they would have shot me immediately. I was hoping to be able to throw it away if necessary. After we arrived in Kiev I went to the social support office to be registered there. The chairman asked me whether I could prove that I had lived in Kiev, and I showed him my passport. He saw my address and gave me a 200-ruble allowance to rent a room.
After the war I had an aversion to everything that I had seen or lived through during the war. I'm reluctant to answer questions related to the war. I had finished 9 years at school before the war. After the war I told my mother that I wanted to get higher secondary education. I need to give credit to my mother because she supported this idea of mine in spite of all misery we were living in. My mother respected educated people. She said that an uneducated person could hurt other people's feelings, however unintentionally, and she avoided such people. I started to study at an evening secondary school in 1945 and finished it with a silver medal in 1946.
I submitted my documents to the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. There were many applicants for the Radio-Engineering Faculty, but I was admitted because I was a medal winner and a war invalid. I lived in the hostel, and my mother rented rooms. Later I received a small room in Podol [14]. After graduating I worked at the Communications Department of the Hydro-Meteorological Center. Later I had several jobs. I didn't have any acquaintances and couldn't get a really good job. I didn't mind because I liked my work. Another reason for my not being able to get a better job was that this was all during the period of the campaign against cosmopolitans [15].
As for the Doctors' Plot [16] I would like to say that there has always been anti-Semitism in USSR. I remember that parents at that time didn't allow their schoolchildren to accept medication from a school doctor if they found out that the doctor was a Jew. I think, the basis of anti- Semitism is people's ignorance and stupidity. Stalin's death in 1953 put an end to this period. Erenburg [17] has an interesting description of this period. The Evening Kiev newspaper published anti-Semitic articles and notes. There were always Jewish names mentioned if something indecent happened. One might have imagined that all existing jerks at that time were Jews.
We went to Tbilisi, but I didn't feel at home there. We decided to go to Kiev. We weren't awaited by anyone. Our place had been destroyed, and we didn't have a place to live. It was a good thing that I kept my passport during my mobilization to the army. It was a hectic moment at the military office. There were many recruits, and they all submitted their passports to have them replaced with military identity cards. The clerk sitting at his table had heaps of passports scattered on the floor around him. He probably thought that these soldiers wouldn't need their passports later on. I put my passport into my pocket when he wasn't looking and thus managed to keep it. It wasn't a good idea to have one's passport during the war. If the Germans had ever captured me and seen that I was a Jew they would have shot me immediately. I was hoping to be able to throw it away if necessary. After we arrived in Kiev I went to the social support office to be registered there. The chairman asked me whether I could prove that I had lived in Kiev, and I showed him my passport. He saw my address and gave me a 200-ruble allowance to rent a room.
After the war I had an aversion to everything that I had seen or lived through during the war. I'm reluctant to answer questions related to the war. I had finished 9 years at school before the war. After the war I told my mother that I wanted to get higher secondary education. I need to give credit to my mother because she supported this idea of mine in spite of all misery we were living in. My mother respected educated people. She said that an uneducated person could hurt other people's feelings, however unintentionally, and she avoided such people. I started to study at an evening secondary school in 1945 and finished it with a silver medal in 1946.
I submitted my documents to the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. There were many applicants for the Radio-Engineering Faculty, but I was admitted because I was a medal winner and a war invalid. I lived in the hostel, and my mother rented rooms. Later I received a small room in Podol [14]. After graduating I worked at the Communications Department of the Hydro-Meteorological Center. Later I had several jobs. I didn't have any acquaintances and couldn't get a really good job. I didn't mind because I liked my work. Another reason for my not being able to get a better job was that this was all during the period of the campaign against cosmopolitans [15].
As for the Doctors' Plot [16] I would like to say that there has always been anti-Semitism in USSR. I remember that parents at that time didn't allow their schoolchildren to accept medication from a school doctor if they found out that the doctor was a Jew. I think, the basis of anti- Semitism is people's ignorance and stupidity. Stalin's death in 1953 put an end to this period. Erenburg [17] has an interesting description of this period. The Evening Kiev newspaper published anti-Semitic articles and notes. There were always Jewish names mentioned if something indecent happened. One might have imagined that all existing jerks at that time were Jews.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
meyer tulchinskiy