Tag #116380 - Interview #78774 (Fania Brantsovskaya)

In 1939 Vilnius was given to Lithuania and became its capital. That summer I finished Realschule. Four of my friends and I decided to go to study in Grodno in Western Belarus. This was my idea - first of all teaching in Grodno was in Polish, which we all knew. Secondly, my aunt Esther lived there. In Grodno I entered the teachers' training college. Before the Soviet power was established in Western Belarus the pupils had to say a Catholic prayer before classes. The prayer was cancelled and the lyceum switched to Russian [in 1939, when the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Poland]. It was difficult to study. I lived in a hostel with other Polish and Belarus girls. They gave me a warm welcome and even gave me a present according to Catholic traditions. Some of the girls' parents were arrested by Soviet authorities. One such girl was the daughter of a policeman. Once she tore the picture of Stalin grabbing it from the sideboard that belonged to another girl in our room. The girl realized she might get in trouble and came to me to ask advice. I told her to go get another picture to replace the one she had torn and pretend nothing had happened. She did as I told her. Some time later our lyceum was renamed to college and we had to take entrance exams in physics and Russian. I said I could only do it in Yiddish and one Jewish professor agreed to be my examiner.