Tag #154544 - Interview #78069 (semyon nezhynski)

There were 200 applicants to be admitted to the Academy. Over 50 Jews submitted their applications, but only five of them, including me, were admitted. I passed 13 entrance exams with excellent marks. I don't know what factor played its role, but they admitted me to the academy. I've never concealed my nationality. There was a mandatory line item 5 24 - nationality, in all application forms. I always wrote that I was a Jew. I had a friend named Leonid Romanenko. His father was Ukrainian. During the Civil War he was chief of ChK 25 of Poltava province. Leonid's mother was a Jew. Leonid put down in all forms that he was a Jew. He was not admitted to the academy and the deputy political chief of our training course yelled at him, 'What prevented you from writing that you were Ukrainian?' Leonid replied that his mother was a Jew and he loved his mother and wrote what he wanted to write.