Dora Slobodianskaya with her co-student

This is a picture of me and my co-student as 1st year students at the Faculty of Biology at Chernovtsy University. The photo was taken in Chernovtsy in 1948. I finished lower secondary school in Faleshty in June 1946. I wanted to continue my studies, but there were no higher educational institutions in Faleshty. My parents were thinking of moving to a bigger town with more Jews and more opportunities for us to study. They corresponded with my aunt Khaya, who lived in Chernovtsy, and decided to move to Chernovtsy. I went to the 9th grade of a Russian school. There was a Jewish school in town, but I intended to get a higher education and all higher educational institutions were Russian. I spoke fluent Russian by that time and had no problems with studying. I got along well with my classmates. Many of them were Jews. There was no anti-Semitism at that time. I finished school with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of Biology at Chernovtsy University in 1948. I was a first year student when the campaigns against cosmopolitans began. I did very well at university. I was elected Komsomol leader of the students of my year, but in 1952, at the height of the struggle against cosmopolitans, I got almost expelled from the Komsomol and dismissed from university. My fellow student, Haim Rabin, a Jew, corresponded with his sister residing in Israel. All other students were aware of it. Later he moved to his sister in Israel. Our Komsomol leaders blamed me that I failed to talk him out of emigration to a capitalist country. They said it was my duty to be on guard in such situations while I almost became a supporter of Zionism. Those were serious accusations at that time. My future husband, Boris Slobodianskiy, helped me. He was secretary of the Komsomol committee at the garment factory. He knew the secretary of the town committee of the Komsomol well. He reviewed my 'case' and said that there were no reasons for such accusations. The Komsomol meeting of my fellow students and the Komsomol meeting of the Faculty approved my expulsion from the Komsomol. There was only the district committee of the Komsomol that we had to go to in order to get a final decision. I went there with the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the Faculty. On our way I asked him, 'Kostya, why?' He replied, 'I don't know why, Dora, but this is how things are'. The district committee of the Komsomol didn't approve the decision of the Faculty to expel me.