Tag #150246 - Interview #78110 (Mikhail Gauzner)

Hence I decided to follow into my father's footsteps and entered Odessa Polytechnic Institute - without exams because I had a golden medal. Many of my Jewish friends could enter Odessa Polytechnic Institute - anti-Semitism wasn't as severe there, although it was 1953, the time of the Doctors' Plot [10]. As far as I remember, the doctors were released in June, and we were admitted in August. The institute was relatively liberal, mostly due to its rector, Victor Dobrovolskiy. Studies were very easy for me. I was greatly attracted by the public activities. I was a member of the Komsomol bureau of my year, later of the department and finally of the institute. In my undergraduate years I was elected to the Komsomol committee bureau of the institute and was responsible for organizing activities. I also led the Komsomol meetings. By the way: the identical head of organizational activities at Odessa Medical Institute was my closest, now late friend Victor Leshchivker. He was also a Jew, and later became a splendid surgeon in Odessa, and assistant-professor at Odessa Medical Institute. When I was in my senior year, the party organizer of the institute told me to write an application to the Party and promised his recommendations. I answered that didn't consider myself apt. It was a lame excuse - I just didn't want to join the Communist Party.