Naum Poliak and his wife Maria Komarovskaya

This is me, Naum Poliak, and my wife Maria Komarovskaya in Kiev in 1953 after the wedding.

I had to continue my studies at the Institute of Railroad Transportation and I demobilized from the army in 1946. At that time the order was issued to dismiss the officers so that they continued their studies. I returned to Kiev. My parents were already there. I entered the second course the Construction Institute.

I entered Kiev engineering and construction institute in 1946. The policy of anti-Semitism had already begun in those years but our rector Fursov was a very decent man. Many Jews entered Kiev engineering and construction institute after they returned from the front. About half of 120 of my co-students were Jewish. And we never felt any unfavorable attitude towards the Jews.
In 1953 when I was still working in the Urals, I met Maria Komarovskaya during my vacation in Kiev. She also studied at our Institute. My mother was very concerned that I was still a bachelor at 30. We had much in common with Maria and we liked each other a lot. We got married in 1953. We didn't have a big wedding. It was just a family dinner. I worked another half a year in the Urals and then I returned to Kiev. I came back to my wife.

We have two daughters: Margarita, born 1954 and Yevgenia born in 1959. They finished school successfully. After school both of them tried to enter the construction institute, but both of them faced anti-Semitism. My older daughter received a satisfactory mark in physics, and she could only be enrolled in the evening studies. My acquaintances helped us to with her admission. Se worked and studied and graduated from this institute successfully and got a very good job. Margarita married a Jewish man. She always identified herself as a Jew, and in the recent years she has read a lot about the history of Israel. She is fond of its language. She has learned Hebrew while living in Ukraine. In 1991 her husband and daughter and she moved to Israel. In Israel she was awarded the first prize at the contest of construction designers and got a job. Now she has a very good job and a nice house. We are going to our oldest granddaughter's wedding soon. She graduated from the Polytechnical Institute in Haifa, served in the army of Israel and received the title of Bachelor of Science.

My younger daughter Yevgenia is not that much fond of the Jewish life. She lives in Kiev, but she doesn't participate in the Jewish life.