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Back then a terrible tragedy struck my Jewish friend Musia Drobnis, my schoolmate. Her father was Chairman of Sovnarkom [Presidium of the government of the USSR]. He was a big official. He left Musia's mother and moved to Moscow in 1923 when one daughter was a year and a half and the other 3 years old. The girls' mother worked at the stocking factory. Her ex- husband helped her every now and then, but they were very poor. In 1937 Musia's father was the director of a huge industrial enterprise. He was charged for derailing trains and arrested. Musia's family became impoverished. I remember them buying jam and eating it with brown bread. They enjoyed it so much that I felt extremely sorry for them.
The girls' mother was also arrested. She was accused of distributing anti- Soviet flyers. We didn't believe it. We knew that she went to struggle for the Soviet power when she was 13. Musia and her sister were expelled from school and forced to move out of their apartment. Their lives were ruined, they didn't have any means of living and had to do any work they could find. They were treated as members of families of 'enemies of the people' and couldn't even hope to get a better job or any further education. After 1953 Musia's parents were rehabilitated posthumously - it turned out they had been executed in the late 1930s.
I finished school in 1938. My friends Shura and Nina and I submitted our documents to the Kharkov Chemical Technological Institute. We were admitted. I lived in a hostel in the first two years. There were four of us sharing a room: Dora, Shura, Nina and I. We enjoyed ourselves, went to the cinema, theater and to parties, read books and went for walks. When I became a 3rd year student I moved in with my Aunt Sonia. Her son had graduated from the Institute before the war and lived with his wife Fania, an archaeologist, in his own apartment.
The girls' mother was also arrested. She was accused of distributing anti- Soviet flyers. We didn't believe it. We knew that she went to struggle for the Soviet power when she was 13. Musia and her sister were expelled from school and forced to move out of their apartment. Their lives were ruined, they didn't have any means of living and had to do any work they could find. They were treated as members of families of 'enemies of the people' and couldn't even hope to get a better job or any further education. After 1953 Musia's parents were rehabilitated posthumously - it turned out they had been executed in the late 1930s.
I finished school in 1938. My friends Shura and Nina and I submitted our documents to the Kharkov Chemical Technological Institute. We were admitted. I lived in a hostel in the first two years. There were four of us sharing a room: Dora, Shura, Nina and I. We enjoyed ourselves, went to the cinema, theater and to parties, read books and went for walks. When I became a 3rd year student I moved in with my Aunt Sonia. Her son had graduated from the Institute before the war and lived with his wife Fania, an archaeologist, in his own apartment.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Ronia Finkelshtein