Alfred Liberman

Here is a photo of me, Alfred Liberman, taken in Kiev in 1999, the year I retired on a pension after working 50 years in Building Construction Institute. I defended my Ph.D. thesis in 1948 and began lecturing at the Kiev Road-Transport Institute. However, a year later I had to quit that job due to 'failure in fair competition.' This was the official version behind my dismissal, but I felt that there was another , ideological, reason. In 1949 I began working in the Building Construction Research Institute, which was subject to the USSR and Ukrainian Republic's ministries for housing and industrial construction. There I worked until 1999 ? half a century! First I was a senior researcher, then the chief of a laboratory. Here, in 1967, together with my colleagues, I was awarded the State Prize of the USSR, which was the second main prize of the Soviet Union after the Lenin Prize. The group of 11 winners of that prize consisted of five Jews, for example, Abram Leonidovich Levansky, deputy minister of the electro-technical industry, and Vladimir Pinchusovich Abovsky and Girt Meyerovich Shagal ? leaders of the major construction trusts of Siberia. I was over 85 when I retired, but people still continue to turn to me for consultations and references ? both my former colleagues and those who read my publications. I have published more than 200 articles and hold a lot of invention patents, etc. Only lately have I begun to read Jewish newspapers. I pass on the most important things to my son. I also watch Jewish TV programs. We are also often invited to 'Khesed' and I use its library. We also subscribe to Ukrainian and Russian newspapers. I do my best to follow the news, listen to the Voice of America and BBC. But we certainly spend more and more time on medical problems now.