This is me and my wife Nora Landsman during my stay at a military training camp. My wife came for a visit. The picture was taken in the village of Luga (Moscow suburbs) in 1960.
I graduated from the Moscow energy institute in 1952 during the swing of anti-Semitism. My mother was seriously ill at that time. She was confined to bed and stayed in hospital from time to time. She caught a cold during the war and since that time she had deforming poly-arthritis.
My father had two apoplectic attacks and one infarction. It was hard for me to get a certificate in the hospital, as my mother was a bed-ridden patient requiring permanent nursing. I brought that certificate to the institute. The most important thing for me was to get a mandatory job assignment in Moscow. I couldn't leave two helpless old people. Due to that medical certificate I stayed in Moscow and the rest of the Jews were sent to hick places. It was hard for them to leave afterwards. I was assigned as an engineer to the foundry 'Isolite,' where anti-Semitism was flourishing.
They couldn't fire me within three years as I was a 'young specialist.' As soon as the three-year term was over I was fired right away in 1955; my job position was reduced and I was fired because of the needlessness of my position. The director even removed my position from the staff schedule and shortly after I was fired, my position reappeared in the staff schedule again. I had to go to multiple interviews wandering from one place to another. First they told me that I was qualified, and then when they checked my form, they said that there were no vacancies. Finally, I was employed at a design institute of water supply systems, 'Giprovodkhoz.' There were many Jews there. First I worked as an engineer, and then I was a senior engineer.
In 1958 I got married. Nora Chestnetskaya was born in Moscow in 1929 into a Jewish family. She was an only child. Russian was Nora's mother tongue. Yiddish wasn't spoken in her family. Nora was a schoolgirl when the war began and was evacuated to Ufa with her mother. When Nora came back from evacuation with her mother she finished school and entered the German philological department of the Moscow Teachers' Training Institute. After graduation from the Teachers' Training Institute, Nora was given a mandatory job assignment at the Moscow Railroad Vocational School to work as a German teacher. She worked there all her life. Her students remained her friends.
Nora was a wonderful person, a very kind and cordial woman. She couldn't be called beautiful, but she was comely and witty. She was always the life and soul of the company. Nora was a book-worm and I always was interested in her opinion on the books I read. She was able to notice details overlooked by me. Unfortunately, we didn't have children. Maybe it was the reason why we were able to talk to each other more than other spouses could afford to.
