Clara Shalenko as a student of Construction College

This is me as a student of Construction college. The photo was made in Odessa in 1948.

In 1946 I entered the Construction college. There were many Jewish students there. In 1947 I became a Komsomol member . There was anti-Semitism after the war. However, my acquaintances treated me well. Quite a few lecturers in our college were anti-Semites. One of them Vlad Maximovich Shakhiev, an Azerbaidjan man, called me Finegold-Minegold. [Fine gold means 'fine gold' and Minegold means 'my gold' - he was probably joking in his own manner.] There was a famine in 1946. There were plenty of food products in the Privoz [main market of Odessa], but who could afford to buy them? I remember that our food was corn pudding or frozen potatoes. We bought a small piece of meat just to make soup once a week. There were coupons to receive bread. Bread was weighed in small slices and there were even smaller pieces of it added to make up the standard weight. We used to eat those pieces on our way home. When at home we divided or rationed slices of bread to last for a day. Students received food coupons to get meals at the canteen. We didn't have enough clothes either. Americans sent humanitarian aid. I remember I was given a dress. It was a checked one with the white collar. I can't recall now who and how distributed such things. I finished the Construction college in 1949.