This is me, Larisa Lifshytz, during my studies in college. In autumn all students went to gather crops in a kolkhoz. I am a water carrier sitting on a barrel filled with water. This photo was taken in a kolkhoz near Kharkov, 1951.
After finishing the 7th form in 1948 I began to consider getting a profession. There was a Construction College. I passed my exams successfully and entered the Faculty of Civilian Construction. There was anti-Semitism at that time and I was aware of it. Some of my friends told me that some of them got a refusal to admit their documents and some were plucked at an exam. However, I didn’t face anything like that. My co-students and teaches had a friendly attitude toward me. When I was the first-year student I joined Komsomol and I was very serious about it. I dedicated much time to Komsomol activities: I was an agitator and propagandist and participated in all Komsomol events. There were few Jewish students in our group and there was unprejudiced attitude toward them.
After finishing college I asked them to issue me a mandatory job assignment to Uzhhorod in Subcarpathian region [800 km from Kiev]. My friend Ada Trudler also got a job assignment to Uzhhorod. We became friends when we were first-year students. We went to work in Subcarpathian regional construction trust where we received a double room in a hostel. I liked Uzhhorod very much: it was a quiet, beautiful and cozy town. Since I grew up and was brought up in the USSR I was amazed to hear Hungarian in the streets. Jews were not afraid of speaking Yiddish or demonstrate that they were Jews. I and Ada met few local Jewish guys who began to take care of us. One of them was Wolf and the name of another was Misha. They introduced us to their friends and families. They invited us to celebration of Jewish holidays where they told us about Jewish history, traditions and customs. This was all new and amazing to me. For the first time in my life I identified myself as Jew. 3 years passed. At first we socialized with Jews only, but then we began to make other acquaintances. Many people moved to Uzhhorod from the USSR after World War II. I didn't face any anti-Semitism in Uzhhorod at that time.
