This reference is typed on a typewriter in the Ukrainian language. Two ‘headers’ in Russian and Hebrew and a bilingual seal below are visible. The text is as follows: ‘The reference is given to comrade Meilakhs Motel Avrumovich to certify that he has indeed completed a two-year course of post-graduate studies in the Institute of the Jewish Proletarian Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, history department, with the right of defending a thesis in 1936-1937.’
The reference was given to me by the director of the institute, Gorokhov. The theme of my thesis was ‘History of anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages.’ It was approved for defense at the beginning of 1936, but I was arrested before that. During the search in our house NKVD employees lost it, but my father found it and hid it, afraid of a new search, in a firewood shed. It got wet from rain and is now in this condition.
When I was arrested, investigator Borisov asked me: ‘Who executed the first Jewish pogroms in the Middle Ages?’ I answered: ‘Knights and peasants’. And he jumped from joy: ‘Oh, peasants? But this is a trotskist idea that peasants are a reactionary class!’ I could only smile, unable to say anything in response to this deep ignoramus.
