In 1939 when I was a student at university a pact with Germany was executed [see Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact] [27]. I didn’t think that there was to be a war.
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Rachil Meitina
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On 22ndJune 1941 I passed my last exams. The beginning of the war was quite a surprise for me. It was a warm day. My sister took her baby son for a walk when she heard about the war on the radio. Shortly afterwards her husband was mobilized to the front. He perished at the front in 1942.
Upon graduation from university I was going to work at the biochemical laboratory in a children’s hospital in Moscow where I had some training during exams. I went to this hospital, but it had already been turned into a military hospital. Well, I had to think about my mother and sister and her baby. We evacuated to Kineshma, about 350 kilometers from Moscow. My father stayed in Moscow since the institute where he was working stayed there, too. He stayed there until September 1942 when the Germans came close to Moscow and panic began in the town. He joined us in Kineshma and stayed there until he was called back to Moscow.
When we came to Kineshma I went to the military registry office and they issued an assignment to me. I was to work in a hospital. There were many Jews in evacuation in Kineshma. The local population didn’t demonstrate any ill-mannered attitude. I worked as a lab assistant in hospital for two years. We worked from 8am till 8pm. We received a meal in the hospital and I even managed to take a bowl of shchi [cabbage soup] to my relatives. The family was having a hard time. We settled down in an empty house. Its owners had left.
In my childhood my parents often took me to Vitebsk in summer. Vitebsk is a lovely town on the Dvina River, about 450 kilometers from Moscow. It is a very green town. There is a nice historical museum housed in the former town hall building. There was a Polish and a Belarus population in Vitebsk, but the majority of the population was Jewish. There was no Jewish neighborhood or district in the town: Jewish houses neighbored upon Belarus houses and this caused no problems whatsoever. People respected the traditions of other nations. My husband, who was born in Vitebsk, told me that his family lived in a communal apartment [3] and their neighbors were a religious Russian family. Their neighbors prayed for them and brought them Easter bread on holiday. They were friends.
My father’s parents were middle class, as they would say nowadays. I guess, they were involved in crafts and one of them had something to do with medicine. My father’s parents must have been religious people. They attended the nearby synagogue in Vitebsk.
I know very little about my paternal grandmother Gelia Meitina. I have her photograph. She had a beautiful and intelligent face. She was born in 1852 and died in New York in 1919. She emigrated to New York with her four children before 1915. My father didn’t want to go there since he was actively involved in the revolutionary movement here in Russia. My father Tsala Meitin was a member of the Bolshevik Party, propagated revolutionary ideas and was even exiled for this to the town of Beryozov, about 2,000 kilometers from Moscow. [Beryozov: a town in Tobolsk region, exile destination at the beginning of the 20thcentury]. Inmates in Beryozov called him Alexandr and when he obtained his documents later he had this first name written in there. He was exiled in 1905 during the tsarist regime and served his term until 1917, the October Revolution [see Russian Revolution of 1917] [4].
My father finished cheder, but didn’t continue his studies in any institution afterward. He was self-educated but an intelligent man.
My father corresponded with his brother until theearly 1930s when it was allowed. After 1937, when the political situation in the Soviet Union was strenuous [during the so-called Great Terror] [6], correspondence with relatives living abroad was dangerous and my father stopped writing to them[see keep in touch with relatives abroad] [7]. He must have been afraid of being arrested and destroyed their photographs.
My grandmother had a younger sister, Esfir. She married Ruvim Okunev, a Jewish man. She died shortly before World War II. They had four daughters. Her older daughter Sophia was my husband’s mother. She was born in 1891 and died in 1968. The second daughter’s name was Mary, born in 1892. The third daughter was Anna, born in 1894. And there was another Sophia. Probably, one of the girl’s name was Seina in Yiddish, but when they changed their names to Russian ones [see common name] [8] they both happened to have the name of Sophia.
When Germans occupied Lithuania she ended up in a ghetto. Mary had two sons. One of them was a talented violinist. Both sons must have escaped from the ghetto, but they perished somewhere since they never showed up again after the war. Mary survived. After the war her sisters took her to Moscow where they moved to after evacuation. The sisters were accommodated well there. Anna was the secretary for the Chief Prosecutor of the Soviet Union for many years, Sophia junior was the secretary for the Chairman of the Moscow Council and Sophia senior was a teacher of mathematics.
My mother’s sister Dvoira Kazarnovskaya lived in Vitebsk. She married David Levitan, a Jewish man. He was a well-known attorney in Vitebsk. During the period of collectivization [10] he saved many people from dispossession [see Kulak] [11]. I saw them bringing him food products to thank him for his services. I remember once we spent our vacation in the house of a man that my uncle had saved from dispossession.
My mother and sister didn’t go to work. My sister had a baby son to take care of. She sold our belongings at the market to get some money to buy food. Later my father, who worked in a printing house, began to send us paper that my sister exchanged for food products in a kolkhoz [28] on the opposite bank of the Volga.
We survived and two years later my father sent us a document enabling us to return to Moscow. We returned to Moscow in 1943.
I went to work at the biochemical laboratory of the central skin and veneorology hospital in Moscow. I worked there from 1943 till 1949. I defended my candidate’s thesis ‘Vitamin B and its influence on carbohydrate metabolism’ in 1949. We injected this vitamin into the brain of animals by the method of Lina Shtern [29] and watched how the skin was changing. This work also had practical significance: we offered treatment to patients by my method.
Shtern was a world-known scientist.
Employees of her institute were her followers and supporters. Later I attended a meeting
where an academician grabbed Shtern’s books yelling,
‘On our Soviet money! On our money they’ve published these books!’ throwing them off the stand.
In 1949 Lina Shtern and members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee [30] were arrested.
Her institute was closed, employees fired and another institute was created on the basis of the previous one.
Employees of her institute were her followers and supporters. Later I attended a meeting
where an academician grabbed Shtern’s books yelling,
‘On our Soviet money! On our money they’ve published these books!’ throwing them off the stand.
In 1949 Lina Shtern and members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee [30] were arrested.
Her institute was closed, employees fired and another institute was created on the basis of the previous one.
The management of the institute where I worked was replaced.
The attitude towards Jews changed dramatically.
We were suppressed and abused.
There was such a hostile environment that we realized it was time to leave.
I submitted my documents to the biochemical laboratory of Vishnevski Institute of Surgery where I became a junior scientific employee. I was employed on 1stDecember 1949 and on 3rdJanuary 1950 I was fired due to reduction of staff; they explained to me that since I was a new employee it was all right to fire me rather than somebody that had worked here for a long time. However, it was crystal-clear that they fired me because I was a Jew. Other employees felt sorry for me. One of them was acquainted with Bakulev, who was opening a laboratory at that time. He began to study lungs and needed to learn about gaseous metabolism, blood gases. He needed employees.
The attitude towards Jews changed dramatically.
We were suppressed and abused.
There was such a hostile environment that we realized it was time to leave.
I submitted my documents to the biochemical laboratory of Vishnevski Institute of Surgery where I became a junior scientific employee. I was employed on 1stDecember 1949 and on 3rdJanuary 1950 I was fired due to reduction of staff; they explained to me that since I was a new employee it was all right to fire me rather than somebody that had worked here for a long time. However, it was crystal-clear that they fired me because I was a Jew. Other employees felt sorry for me. One of them was acquainted with Bakulev, who was opening a laboratory at that time. He began to study lungs and needed to learn about gaseous metabolism, blood gases. He needed employees.
I actually set up the laboratory that lay the foundations for the Bakulev Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery. I was one of its founders. I was head of the laboratory. I worked there from 1950 till 1989.
I met Isaac Verkhovski, my future husband, in 1934. In 1943 his mother, two aunts, Anna and Sophia junior, and he moved to Moscow. They lived in a room in a communal apartment. We met again on his mother’s birthday in 1948. We dated until we decided to get married in October 1950. We had a civil ceremony. Isaac was a designer and he was surprised at the dull interior design of this registry office. There were only dusty palm plants decorating the room. At home we had a small dinner. We settled down in my apartment on Kropotkinskaya Street. My mother, my father, my sister Vera and her son also lived there. There wasn’t much space.
In December 1941 he was mobilized to the army. He was wounded in his right hand at the front and was demobilized from the army in 1942. In November 1943 he began to work as art director in the Moscow Jewish State Theater of Solomon Mikhoels[31]. My husband participated in making arrangements for the Freilakh performance and many other performances produced by Mikhoels. He did the stage sets and costumes for almost all performances staged by Mikhoelsin the theater. My husband worked with a well-known artist called Alexandr Tyshler [32]. They were friends. In 1948 Mikhoels was murdered in Minsk. My husband went to his funeral and helped his relatives to make all necessary arrangements. Isaac was very sad about the death of Mikhoelsand the subsequent closure of the Jewish theater. He stayed in the theater until the last day and helped to save the stage sets. The Jewish theater operated until early 1950. In the same year Isaac began to work in Maly Theater [33]. He obtained an assignment by the Ministry of Culture. He worked there for over 30 years until he retired in 1989.
Our family didn’t have much to live on. I received a salary of 80 rubles when I was a lab assistant, which wasn’t a lot of money. My husband received 60 rubles. We lived with my parents until my son was born. We gave my mother 100 rubles of housekeeping money every month and had little left.
Well, in 1950 I joined academician Bakulev’s group. I was senior lab assistant.
Senior lab assistant was a low position, the lowest one for a person with higher education and I was already a candidate of medical sciences. Later,
when we had our laboratory equipped my boss introduced me as our senior lab assistant and head of laboratory. I had a low position and a small salary because I was Jewish.
Senior lab assistant was a low position, the lowest one for a person with higher education and I was already a candidate of medical sciences. Later,
when we had our laboratory equipped my boss introduced me as our senior lab assistant and head of laboratory. I had a low position and a small salary because I was Jewish.
Once in early 1953, when the Doctors’ Plot’ [34] was at its height, I got a telephone call from the academy.
They notified me that I was fired due to reduction of staff in Bakulev’s group. I and another woman were fired. She was Russian, but her husband, a well-known physicist, was a Jew. The next day my manager went to see Bakulev. Bakulev had the habit of leaving town when something like this happened. My boss returned and said that Bakulev told him there was nothing he could do at the moment. My husband became the sole breadwinner in our family.
They notified me that I was fired due to reduction of staff in Bakulev’s group. I and another woman were fired. She was Russian, but her husband, a well-known physicist, was a Jew. The next day my manager went to see Bakulev. Bakulev had the habit of leaving town when something like this happened. My boss returned and said that Bakulev told him there was nothing he could do at the moment. My husband became the sole breadwinner in our family.
In 1952 my father lost his job. He worked at the editorial office of a scientific research institute for over 30 years. He was one of their best employees. He began to work for free at the library near our house. My sister, who worked at the Institute of Glass and defended her thesis, was also fired. Our family of six lived on my husband’s small salary. It was very difficult. We could hardly manage to make ends meet.
On 5thMarch 1953 Stalin died. We had idolized Stalin during and after the war, but at that moment we already understood that he was to blame for the suppression of Jews. His death was a liberation.
On 6thMarch my boss called me and told me to come back to work immediately. My colleagues told me that Bakulev adamantly demanded that I returned. I held the same position, but soon I became a junior and then a senior scientific employee. Then I became head of the laboratory. Some time later my sister also resumed her job.
However, Stalin’s death didn’t put an end to the persecution of Jews. I had almost an analogous story with my doctor’s dissertation that I defended at the Academy of Medical Sciences. I got all votes ‘for’ it. I was approved by the first council of VAK certification commission: the highest body of federal executive authority awarding titles, the Russian equivalentsof PhDs, MAs, etc]. Then another council was conducted. Somebody told me that a professor didn’t like my surname and demanded an additional reference for my work. Once an acquaintance of mine called me to say that her neighbor, who was a well-known scientist, had got my dissertation to write a reference letter. He said that he was unfamiliar with the subject and asked me to write a reference letter that he would sign. My boss and I wrote the letter and he signed it. On the next day my dissertation was approved.
When I was promoted life became easier. A senior scientific employee received 400 rubles per month. This was enough at that time. I couldn’t afford to buy expensive things, but we were doing all right. We went to theaters, art exhibitions and concerts at the Conservatory. My husband was fond of ballet and we attended all ballet contests. We often had guests over at birthdays and on Soviet holidays. Isaac was a sociable man. His colleagues liked him. His friends were producers and artists of the Maly Theater. We liked to spend our summer vacation at the seashore in Riga, Latvia.
We aren’t religious and never observed Jewish traditions and our son wasn’t raised in the environment of Jewish traditions.
Gleb failed to enter the College of Chemical Machine Building in Moscowthe first time. Perhaps, his nationality played a role. The following year Gleb had private classes with a teacher ofmathematics from that college. This teacher was also there during an exam. Gleb passed his exams, entered Moscow College of Engineers of Railroad Transport in 1975 and graduated in 1980. He never mentioned any problems regarding nationality in college. Upon graduation he got a job with the Moscow metro. He has worked in the laboratory of corrosion for many years. At night, when there is no traffic, they inspect the track for corrosion. He joined the Party at work for the sake of his career. He wasn’t an active party member. All he did was attend meetings and pay his monthly fees. His membership was over at the beginning of perestroika [35].