Tag #153469 - Interview #78479 (Irina Lidskaya)

Upon graduation in 1959 I received an assignment in Lugansk.  Dad wanted to help me find a job in Kiev, but at the time I thought that one had to perform one’s duty. I didn’t work long in Lugansk, though. It was an awful clinic with a terrible Chief Doctor. Her name was Anna Alexandrovna Polovinchenko. She was filled with malice and anti-Semitism. She didn’t even conceal it. But I always tried to do my job well, and it was hard to find fault with me. My father rescued me from Lugansk.  He found a job for me in Borispol, and I worked eight years there. I became a real specialist.  But it was a terrible, long commute from Kiev. I went there by bus. It was always full of people, baskets and sacks. I always came to work exhausted and tired. But I have very warm memories of this time. We had a very nice shift: two male doctors and I. We were all Jews: Boria Tabachnik, Sasha Gutman and I. There were also two Ukrainian girls. They were both country girls, but they were very well mannered. They treated me very well. And this was during a period that was terrible and fearful.