Tag #147398 - Interview #92536 (Lyudmila Matsina)

And, following my father's path, I entered LISI - the Leningrad Institute of Construction Engineering. Those were the terrible years of 1952 and 1953. In those years, the last years of Stalin’s rule, there was an onslaught of anti-Semitism in the country. Jews were fired from work in enterprises and factories, they were banned from entering higher school institutions. Propaganda was claiming that Jews were the nation of “poisoners” – meaning the medical doctors from the notorious “Doctors’ Case”, fabricated by Stalin’s companions-in-arms in 1952. But in our students’ environment there wasn't a trace of anti-Semitism. But I remember, that when my relatives learned that Jews were going to be exiled, Mum burnt all the photos of our American relatives - Grandfather’s elder brother, who left for America in 1920s, and his letters, because everyone was scared of the worst. But nothing happened. God was merciful to us.