Selected text
Isaac got a job at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the Academy of Sciences. It was so difficult for me. I finally got a job as senior lab assistant at the Department of Organic Chemistry at the Silicate Institute. I didn't like it. I managed to get the position of junior scientific employee at the Institute of Non-Organic Chemistry. After a few weeks the director of the institute called me and said that it was a mistake to employ me as junior scientific employee and that if I wanted to stay with them I had to accept the position of senior lab assistant. This was at the onset of anti-Semitic campaigns that became a state policy in 1948-49. [This was the so-called campaign against cosmopolitans.] [19]
While working as senior lab assistant I prepared my thesis. But this took place at the height of anti-Semitism in 1952. My tutor Efim Grinein, a Jew, was fired. Nobody wished to even accept my thesis for review. I prepared another thesis under the leadership of Professor Fialko and defended it in 1956. I became candidate of sciences, but I had to work as senior lab assistant for ten years. I had many publications and students who were working on their thesis. But whenever I addressed the director of the institute, asking him when I would be promoted to the position of junior scientific employee he got embarrassed telling me that the time would come.
In 1966 I finally became a junior scientific employee then a senior scientific employee and, finally, a leading scientific employee. I prepared five candidates of sciences and worked on the development of new medications, based on compounds of metals with nucleic acids. I retired in 1997 when I turned 77. I broke my hip and became an invalid. My former students call and visit me. They come to see me or ask my advice.
While working as senior lab assistant I prepared my thesis. But this took place at the height of anti-Semitism in 1952. My tutor Efim Grinein, a Jew, was fired. Nobody wished to even accept my thesis for review. I prepared another thesis under the leadership of Professor Fialko and defended it in 1956. I became candidate of sciences, but I had to work as senior lab assistant for ten years. I had many publications and students who were working on their thesis. But whenever I addressed the director of the institute, asking him when I would be promoted to the position of junior scientific employee he got embarrassed telling me that the time would come.
In 1966 I finally became a junior scientific employee then a senior scientific employee and, finally, a leading scientific employee. I prepared five candidates of sciences and worked on the development of new medications, based on compounds of metals with nucleic acids. I retired in 1997 when I turned 77. I broke my hip and became an invalid. My former students call and visit me. They come to see me or ask my advice.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Zhenia Kriss