Tag #149961 - Interview #90532 (Grigoriy Fihtman)

I joined the party in 1952, at the period when ‘doctors’ plot’ [12] was at its height. This was a splash of anti-Semitism and you should have seen how they jeered at me at the ceremony of admission to VKP(b) (All-Union Party of Bolsheviks). It’s hard to find words to describe it! I was born Grigoriy and everybody called me by this name, though my parents knew that I wasn’t Grigoriy. One of the Party bureau members asked me all of a sudden: ‘What’s your real name?’ I said: ‘Grigoriy’. ‘And your patronymic? ‘Samuelovich’. ‘No, you tell us the truth. Why would you want to hide it? Just tell us your name'. I said: ‘This is the only name I have’. They wanted me to pronounce the name of Gershl. Anyway, they admitted me.  Chairman of the village council and chairman of the kolkhoz gave me recommendations to join the Party. They were both Ukrainian. Two recommendations were required. The third recommendation was to be issued by the Party district committee. I had three recommendations and they had nothing else to do, but admit me, but those provocative questions! ‘When was the last time you worked electors? – ‘I was an agitator-propagandist in a tractor operators crew. They pounced on me ‘He hasn’t met with his people for 48 hours! You should have talked with them yesterday! You should have seen them today! And you only were there the day before yesterday’. The situation was terrible at the time: director of school was a Jew, he got fired, chief of district department of education was a Jew and he was fired, chief of financial department of the district military office, captain, was a Jew and was fired. On one of those days they told me to make my appearance at the bureau of the district Komsomol committee. By that time I was one of the best pioneer tutors and I taught physical culture. The bureau jerked on me and threatened to fire me from my position of senior pioneer tutor. That meant depriving me of my piece of bread. They were just following instructions of higher authorities. About ten years later I met with those people and they told me they were forced to do this and in truth, they didn’t have anything against me personally.