Tag #113248 - Interview #92279 (Boris Iofik)

I was a part-time student and worked at the machine-building factory named after Karl Marx. And suddenly, when I was a student of the 3rd course I was invited to the local military registration and enlistment office. They took away my passport [in the USSR and Russia the internal passport is the basic document proving the citizen’s identity] and said: ‘You will serve again.’ It happened in 1951. I was promoted to the rank of junior lieutenant and sent to construction troops at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We built military units. It is interesting that we knew nothing about the constructions we worked on. It seems to me that they belonged to antiaircraft defense. I was a commander of platoon, and later I was appointed deputy chief of the staff.

In my platoon there were guys from the Western Ukraine and Belarus. They were illiterate, but kind and dutiful. And in the other platoon there served soldiers from the Caucasus, and there happened murders and other troubles. Buildings we constructed were situated near Moscow. Therefore I decided to enter the Moscow Academy at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I passed through all entrance examinations, got excellent marks, but was rejected for medical grounds. A pretext was my poor eyesight, but in fact the reason was anti-Semitism. I got very angry and started writing official reports to authority about my demobilization. Not to waste time, I entered the Leningrad Construction College (correspondence course). At last (in 1955) I was demobilized.