My father Itshok Khatset (fourth on the right) and his attorney colleagues on the parade on 1 May. Kiev, 1951.
My father returned to Kiev from evacuation in February 1944, [Kiev was liberated in November 1943]. My father was a member of the commission responsible for evaluation of damage.
After the war my father was a member of the Town Collegium of Attorneys. He was responsible for helping Jews who were returning form evacuation to get back their apartments. This was not even a Jewish issue -this was the issue of protection of human rights. It was hard to have these issues resolved since apartments in the central part of the town were occupied by high-level officials. My father worked very hard. He hardly ever went to bed before 2 o'clock in the morning and got up at 8-8.30 in the morning. He did morning gymnastics and sponged himself down until he grew very old. My father reviewed all cases at home. He also worked part-time for the Town Council and executive committees and was too busy at work to review these applications in every detail. Besides, my father read special textbooks in law practices in the USSR and Ukraine. His colleagues and clients respected him a lot. Once we went to a party many years after my father died and one of the attendees said to me ' Your father taught so many generations of lawyers!'
Shortly afterward struggle against cosmopolitans began. My father also fell under the category of cosmopolites and was fired from the attorney agency in 1949 or 1950. He didn't go back to work. My father received a pension. Later in the early 1950s, he resumed his work at the attorney agency. He retired in 1959 since my mother was ill she had heart problems and father had to stay at home to take care of her.
In 1976 my father died. We buried him near my mother's grave at the Jewish corner of a town cemetery no traditions observed. My father was involved in public activities consulting young lawyers at the Collegium of Attorneys and Town Executive Committee when he was a pensioner.
