Yakov Voloshyn with his colleagues

This is me (on the left) at my desk in the editorial office of the ?Kolkhoznoye selo? (Kolkhoz village) newspaper with my colleagues. This photo was taken in Kiev on 8 December 1954. After demobilization I went to work in 1945. I worked with the Soviet Villager newspaper. This was a newspaper of the Central Committee of the Party published in Ukrainian for the Western regions of Ukraine, annexed to the USSR after the war: Moldova, Bukovina, Subcarpathia. In the late 1940s this newspaper ceased publication and gave way for a new newspaper: 'Kolkhoznoye Selo' [Kolkhoz village]. This was also a Central Committee newspaper and published in a bigger format. It was published in Russian and Ukrainian. I worked a lot to support the family. Besides working for the newspaper I also worked freelance in other editorial offices. I took retouch orders and gave photographs back at the scheduled time, receiving my payment. I also painted covers for books and magazines. In January 1953 the Doctors' Plot began. Anti-Semitic articles were published every day. I faced anti-Semitism as well. I met twice with a military at the front. He was a stranger, but we talked and had a smoke and said our 'goodbyes'. When I came to work with the Kolkhoznoye Selo newspaper, he was chief editor. We recognized each other and began to recall the front and how we met. During the period of the struggle against cosmopolitans I heard that our deputy editor, a fanatical anti-Semite was spreading mendacious rumors about me. He said that I had not been to the front but that I had stayed in the rear in Tashkent, and other such lies. Friends whom I believed told me about it. I got tired of it and I went to talk with the chief editor. I asked him whether I had been at the front or not. He burst out laughing and said, 'But we met there!' Then I explained to him what it was about. He was upset about it. He called his deputy and told him that he was reducing him to chief of department - and this was a significant reduction - and if he ever heard again that he was spreading lies he would dismiss him. This was the end of it.