Tag #117250 - Interview #78030 (Margarita Kamiyenovskaya)

At that time the Jewish youth was actively getting ready to leave for Palestine. There were Zionist youth organizations, which nurtured future settlers for Palestine and taught them the necessary professions. But the quota for immigration to Palestine from Estonia was inconsiderable at that time and many people who wished to build the new state didn't manage to get there. Since my father was a port doctor, he knew all the captains very well. Many Jewish guys who wanted to leave for Palestine were hired as sailors with the help of my father and their dream to reach Palestine came true.

Even in the tsarist times in Estonia there was no five percent quota [9] for the Jewish students, which was enforced throughout the Russian empire. That is why a large number of Jews went to Tartu to study at the university there. I remember, once I was on an excursion at Tartu University and the following was written in German on a cell wall, 'I sat here for teasing a Jewish student Khan.' It was proof that even in tsarist times anti-Semitism was persecuted in Estonia. There was a Judaic department in Tartu University at that time. Of course, I can't say that there was no anti- Semitism in the period of the Estonian Republic. I think it has always been in all countries at all times and will always be there while Jews are alive.