Tag #152917 - Interview #77951 (Esiah Kleiman)

I finished school in 1949. I knew there were restrictions for the admission of Jews to higher educational institutions, but I submitted my documents to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Chernovtsy University anyway, passed my entrance exams and was admitted. I was lucky, though. My future wife, Fenia Trachtenbroit, also took exams at Chernovtsy University. She passed them with the highest grades. Yet she was not admitted, just like so many other Jews. If any of them went to complain that Ukrainian nationals were admitted even though they only had satisfactory grades, they were offered to attend lectures as candidates to students - with the possibility to be enrolled if another student was expelled. This was no guarantee of admission, but it was a chance.