Hana Muchnik in financial office employee uniform

This is me, Hana Muchnik, photographed in the early 1950s, wearing the green uniform of a financial office employee. This photo was taken in Bendery.

We returned to Moldova in 1944. Life was going on. My sister Elka went to work at the Teachers' Training School where she received a room. It was a little room, but there were two beds, a table, two chairs and even a stove in it. It was all right to live in it! I went to work as a cashier in a canteen. My sister kept telling me that I had to continue my studies at the Medical College. However, after having typhus twice and malaria, I was too weak to go to study in a college. My sister told me to try at least a technical school. I entered the Financial School in Kishinev, the Department of Finance and Taxation.

In early 1953, I moved to work in Bendery. I worked as a financial officer in this town for 25 years. I received a small room in a shared apartment. This was the period of state level anti-Semitism. I wouldn’t say it affected me. I remember that during the period of the ‘Doctors’ Plot,’ when all Jews felt that their people were endangered, my supervisor, basically a nice person , told me how she went to a Jewish doctor, who took a long time to examine her, probably intending to poison her. I listened to such things, but had to keep silent. When Stalin died in 1953, I didn’t grieve or cry. Somehow I knew he was the reason for many of our troubles.

I was already 30 years old. I knew I had to somehow take care of my personal life. Somebody introduced me to a single Jewish man in Bendery. His name was Isaac Fishman, he was five years younger than me. He was born in Bendery in 1928. I didn’t feel any love toward Isaac, but I was much attracted by his having a big family. I was missing a big Jewish home and the way of life I was used to since my childhood. I gave my consent to marry him. So it happened that I never knew love for a man in my whole life.  In 1955 Isaac and I registered our marriage, and there was a small wedding dinner.