Tag #155586 - Interview #94720 (Sarra Shylman)

In 1949 I finished the Communications College and I felt a change in attitude toward Jews. My co-students stayed to work in Kiev while I received a job assignment [18] to Southern Sakhalin in 6000 km from home. [The Soviet Union acquired the Kuril Islands and southern Sakhalin at the very end of World War II.] There were only few Jews in my group, but they managed to stay in Kiev: they involved their acquaintances to pull strings for them. I decided to fight and managed to receive a job assignment to the east of Ukraine, 400 km from Kiev, in the brick factory of Kharkov. I worked as construction materials production engineer. I rented a storeroom.