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This is me, Gherda Kagan (the sixth from the left) at a party of students of Odessa College of Food Industry . This photo was made in Odessa in 1952.
In 1950 I entered the technological department of tinned food of the Food Industry College, though this was the first year when Jews began to face obstacles entering higher educational institutions. There was struggle against cosmopolitans in process. Many of my Jewish friends failed to enter colleges, though they studied as well as I did. When I became a student this dressmaker that my mother knew made me a suit from inexpensive half-woolen fabric of bottle green color.
The period of 'doctors' plot' went past me somehow. I was in love and was engaged with my private life. However, I remember very well the Stalin died. We heard the news at home and I went to college by tram #23. Usually old Belgian trams, jogging and rattling were never quiet or boring. There was always a wit with his jokes or some wicked woman starting a wrangle in a streetcar. On that day it seemed there was nobody in the tram. It took me a while to get to Grecheskaya Square from Bolshaya Arnautskaya Street and there was deathly silence all this trip. In college a young teacher came into the classroom. She had tearful eyes. She sat down and looked at us. Somebody sniffed and then everybody had tears poring down: we cried after Stalin for an hour and a half. I went to study English at school at that time and I was walking home late at night. There wee deserted streets and mourning music sounded from windows.
In 1954, when I was a 4-year student I married Yevgeniy Grinblat, a 5-year student of Flour grinding College.
