Liza Usherenko

This is the picture of me, Liza Usherenko.

In 1940 I finished school and entered philological department in Kiev State University. My father wasn't very happy with my decision. He was 64 and wanted me to go to work as soon as possible. But my mother was very happy. She wanted me to get good education and was ready to sew day and night if necessary. Although the competition was high I managed to pass my entrance exams. I didn't face any anti-Semitism before the war.

In 1956 I graduated from University. I studied there by correspondence. There was a vacancy of an editor, but our Chief editor didn't promote me to this position. He found an error in the proofreaders' work, said that I was responsible for it and fired me. It was the period of anti-Semitic campaign already. Some kind acquaintances helped me to find a job at the "Rainbow" and from there I went to the "Sport newspaper". However, editor of this newspaper had a meeting at the Central Committee of the party and they said to him "Is it a synagogue of the newspaper? There are too many Jewish names". And I was fired again.

I was renting a room from my relative, but I was already in line for those that needed an apartment in Shevchenkovskiy district in Kiev. In the long run I received a room at a communal apartment in Turgenevskaya Street in the center of Kiev. Quite a long time later, when I was about 40 years old I received an apartment. I got another job where I could make some additional money. It was at the studio of scientific popular films. Later I was offered the editor's position in Ukrainian advertising program. We were a team there. We celebrated Soviet holidays together and issued wall newspapers. Once we decorated our wall newspaper with hexagonal paper snowflakes. The party unit leader called the artist and said that those snowflakes reminded Magendovid and demanded to remove the newspaper. This was the period of the 1970s.

Besides Ukrainian advertising program I did translations into Ukrainian and my works were published in "Ukraina" and "Universe" magazines. I retired in 1977.