Tag #147942 - Interview #78565 (Inna Rajskaya)

As soon as I graduated from school in 1951 I applied to the University to study in the chemistry department. Even though I had good grades, they didn’t accept my application, and one of the senior women who sat in the selection committee quietly explained to me that it would be better for me not to apply to this department. It was clearly because of the climate of mounting public anti-Semitism. This was the first slap in my face. Why it was the first slap? Because I felt for the first time in my life that I was a social outcast because of my nationality! Then I applied  to the Pedagogical Institute, but this time to another, department – geography, not chemistry – and I was accepted.  I graduated in 1955.