Larissa Khusid

This is a photo of me, Larissa Khusid, taken in Kiev in 1946. In Frunze I dated a young man from Kharkov. After the liberation of Kiev, my fiancee's family and I went to Kharkov. I came to Kiev in January 1945 and began the second term in the Theory and History Department at Kiev Conservatory. In Kharkov I met Isaak Feldman, one of my schoolmates. He was in love with me and proposed. It took me some time to make a choice between them while I was in Kiev. In the end I married Isaak Feldman, remaining friends with my friend from Kharkov. In 1949 I finally felt myself a Jew. On April 13, 1949 there was a meeting held at the House of Arts to discuss the issue of rootless cosmopolites, as they were then called then. Most of our teachers at the Conservatory were Jews: Liya Hinchina, my teacher before the war, Maria Gelik, Frieda Azrova, Ada German, brother Abram, Matvey Rozenpud and others. At this meeting Andriy Malyshko, a Soviet Ukrainian poet and many others posed their accusations against the ?rootless cosmopolites.? A few days later, I was expelled from the Conservatory. All the Jewish teachers were fired, of course. I felt terrible about what happened. I have been to France, Hungary, and the Netherlands, but I never considered emigration, and never to Israel. My attitude towards Israel is dubious. As I was raised an internationalist by my family and the State, I have always been against mono-national communities.