Tag #147740 - Interview #78105 (Jacob Mikhailov)

In January 1953, when I was in Izhevsk, the Doctors' Plot [41] commenced. Of course, I didn't believe the things written in the articles. I couldn't envisage a doctor, who had been treating the top circles of the government for many years, to poison people. It was a libel. Many people believed that. There were some of my acquaintances who believed that Jews would be able to commit anything, including the assassination of Stalin. There were some younger people who considered Stalin to be a criminal, who should have been exterminated a long time ago. Such talks were very hazardous at that time. We were lucky that there wasn't an NKVD stooge among us, and that we weren't arrested. Common people unconditionally believed everything they broadcast on the radio or things written in the newspapers. People refused to go to the Jewish doctors in the polyclinics. Anti-Semitism was acerbated.