Certificate of release from military service Frida Khatset’s father Itshok Khatset

Certificate of release from military service issued to my father Itshok Khatset. My father was short-sighted and was not subject to military service. Kiev, 1911.

My father Itshok Khatset, born in 1889, he studied at Commercial School in Kiev and finished it with a gold medal [highest award for graduates of secondary schools in the Tsarist Russia and after in former USSR] in 1906. To enter the University he had to pass exams for a course of studies in grammar school. My mother told me that my father's dream was to become a doctor and he submitted documents to Medical Faculty, but was not admitted due to the 5% restriction for admission of Jews. He studied at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics for a year and then went to study at the Medical Faculty, but left it. He spent a lot of time studying philosophy and literature and he decided that he had to refuse from becoming a doctor since he would experience the feeling of guilt every time he fails to cure a patient and every fatality would be painful for him. My father went to study at the Law Faculty believing that he would be helping people after getting this profession. He was a very sociable, kind and educated man and very intelligent person.

In 1913 my father had to terminate his studies at the University since he fell ill with tuberculosis and had to go take a treatment in Mentona, France, wealthy people used to travel to get the best medical treatment in Europe. He returned before World War I, passed his graduate exams in 1915 and became an attorney assistant.