This is me, Iyah Dziekovskaya (the first from the right) at a physics lesson with my classmates Oksana Illich and Lida Fokina. This photo was taken in Izmail in 1948. My friends and I are experimenting with magnets at our physics lesson. There are cabinets with laboratory devices. Lida and I are wearing our school uniforms.
In 1944 my father was appointed regional forensic expert in Izmail and we moved there. My sister Inna and I studied in school #2 for girls. There were different teachers: some were very intelligent and others were not. All of my classmates were my friends. I joined Komsomol in Izmail. My classmates elected me a Komsomol organizer of my the class. There was an incident when I was in the 10th form. Our teacher of mathematic was Akulina Trofimovna. Everybody called her Akula ('shark' in Russian). Once my classmate Lida Levitskaya (she lives in Israel now) was late. When the teacher asked her what happened, Lida began her story with 'Akula sent me to…' She never finished her story. The teacher began to yell: ''How can you call a teacher with this name!' There was a scandal: they were going to expel Lida from Komsomol and there was an issue posed whether she deserved to be allowed to finish school. I spoke in her defense at a meeting. I said there were always nicknames given to teachers and to pupils and there was nothing bad about it. Then the district Komsomol committee called Lida to come see them. They asked whether she and I were related. So, I got a reprimand. We both finished school without problems.
