Tag #155647 - Interview #77997 (dora slobodianskaya)

I did very well at university. I was elected Komsomol leader of the students of my year, but in 1952, at the height of the struggle against cosmopolitans, I got almost expelled from the Komsomol and dismissed from university. My fellow student, Haim Rabin, a Jew, corresponded with his sister residing in Israel. All other students were aware of it. Later he moved to his sister in Israel. Our Komsomol leaders blamed me that I failed to talk him out of emigration to a capitalist country. They said it was my duty to be on guard in such situations while I almost became a supporter of Zionism. Those were serious accusations at that time. My future husband, Boris Slobodianskiy, helped me. He was secretary of the Komsomol committee at the garment factory. He knew the secretary of the town committee of the Komsomol well. He reviewed my 'case' and said that there were no reasons for such accusations. The Komsomol meeting of my fellow students and the Komsomol meeting of the Faculty approved my expulsion from the Komsomol. There was only the district committee of the Komsomol that we had to go to in order to get a final decision. I went there with the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the Faculty. On our way I asked him, 'Kostya, why?' He replied, 'I don't know why, Dora, but this is how things are'. The district committee of the Komsomol didn't approve the decision of the Faculty to expel me.