Rachil Meitina

This is me when I worked at the Bakulev Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery in Moscow as senior scientific employee. This photograph was taken by an Institute photographer in the 1970s. I submitted my documents to the biochemical laboratory of Vishnevski Institute of Surgery where I became a junior scientific employee. I was employed on 1st December 1949 and on 3rd January 1950 I was fired due to reduction of staff; they explained to me that since I was a new employee it was all right to fire me rather than somebody that had worked here for a long time. However, it was crystal-clear that they fired me because I was a Jew. Other employees felt sorry for me. One of them was acquainted with Bakulev, who was opening a laboratory at that time. He began to study lungs and needed to learn about gaseous metabolism, blood gases. He needed employees. Alexandr Bakulev was a famous surgeon. He was chief surgeon in the Kremlin hospital for many years and a full member of the Medical Academy of Sciences. He was the director of the surgical clinic at the town hospital; a very decent and intelligent man. He was a multifaceted surgeon. When I began to work with him he was organizing a lung department. In 1948 he performed the first heart surgery. He employed me. There were several broken units in the room where I was to work. They opened the door saying, 'This is where you will be working'. I started work on 28th January 1950. I actually set up the laboratory that lay the foundations for the Bakulev Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery. I was one of its founders. I was head of the laboratory. I worked there from 1950 till 1989.

Centropa Collection acquired by USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. 

USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

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