Ada Dal

This is me as a student. The photo was taken in Kiev in 1954. After the war, when we returned from evacuation in Saratov, I studied at the girls' secondary school #50 in Kiev. I had friends of different nationalities. I faced no anti-Semitism at school. I was fond of reading. I didn't go in for sports. Studying took a lot of my time but we managed to go to the theaters and cinema. We celebrated birthdays and holidays with my friends. We especially liked the New Year. We were very poor. We were always hungry until 1947 when they stopped the card system. We were also dressed very poorly. I finished school with a gold medal. I had the highest grades in all subjects. I entered Kiev Polytechnic Institute without exams. It was during the period of the campaign against cosmopolitans. Jews were not accepted to higher humanitarian educational institutions. I was eager to get a profession related to the humanities, but I realized how slim my chance was and went to a technical institute. I became a chemical production engineer. I was the only Jew in my group. It made almost no difference in the course of our studies. But when we received [mandatory] job assignments it turned out that all other Kievites stayed in Kiev and my assignment was to the small Ukrainian town of Sumy. I didn't stay there long - there was no work for me, and I returned to Kiev. With big difficulties I managed to get a job at the design institute Giprochlor. I worked there until my retirement in 1987.