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This happened in 1950. I got married that year. I married my distant relative, Israel Geller, a son of my grandfather's sister Beshyva. He was 16 years older than I. Israel defended his candidate of sciences thesis in biology before the war. He lived in a civil marriage before the war. They weren't happy together and when Israel was recruited to the army during the Great Patriotic War they made an agreement that if he survived they would split up. After the war Israel returned to Kiev. His ex-wife got married and lived in Sverdlovsk. When I was a child Israel and his wife were my idols. I just adored Israel. Therefore, when he began to court me and then proposed to me I gave my consent at once. His mother Beshyva and he had a room in a communal apartment in the center of Kiev where I moved to. Our co-tenants were a very nice Ukrainian family. Their only son perished at the front. We were friends and often had tea in the kitchen until late in the evening. In 1960 our co-tenants received an apartment and we became the owners of a three-bedroom apartment with a kitchen. We didn't have a wedding party. We had a civil ceremony and went to visit my mother at the weekend. She made a wedding dinner for relatives. Israel worked at the Sugar Beet Institute. He was a senior scientific worker and then became the head of the laboratory.
I passed my state exams in 1951 - I was already in the family way - and was waiting for an assignment distribution [mandatory job assignment] 34. This was the first time I faced state anti-Semitism. I was the only contender for post-graduate studies, but my degree tutor said to me, 'Maya, take it easy. Take it as it is. Jews are not being admitted to the post-graduate course'. During the campaign against cosmopolitans 35 there were continuous meetings at which Jews were accused of cosmopolitism. We had a wonderful teacher of Russian literature - her last name was Fradkina and she was a Jew. She was accused that in her dissertation entitled 'Chekhov 36 and English literature' she stated that Chekhov must have been under the influence of the English literature and followed its principles. Everybody understood how wild such an assumption was, but nobody could do anything since anyone would have been fired as a supporter of Zionism if they had tried to speak in her defense. She was fired from university and so was her husband, who taught history.
I passed my state exams in 1951 - I was already in the family way - and was waiting for an assignment distribution [mandatory job assignment] 34. This was the first time I faced state anti-Semitism. I was the only contender for post-graduate studies, but my degree tutor said to me, 'Maya, take it easy. Take it as it is. Jews are not being admitted to the post-graduate course'. During the campaign against cosmopolitans 35 there were continuous meetings at which Jews were accused of cosmopolitism. We had a wonderful teacher of Russian literature - her last name was Fradkina and she was a Jew. She was accused that in her dissertation entitled 'Chekhov 36 and English literature' she stated that Chekhov must have been under the influence of the English literature and followed its principles. Everybody understood how wild such an assumption was, but nobody could do anything since anyone would have been fired as a supporter of Zionism if they had tried to speak in her defense. She was fired from university and so was her husband, who taught history.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
maya kaganskaya