This is me, Maria Koblik-Zeltser, with my husband Froim Koblik-Zeltser and our daughter Anna. The picture was taken in Kishinev in 1955.
We moved into our room after the wedding. My husband was transferred to the extramural department. He was hired by professor Sharapov, the leading histologist of the medical institute. My husband turned out to be really talented. He started as a laboratory assistant and gradually became a well-known histologist. Having graduated from the Teachers’ Training Institute he became an extramural student of the Medical Institute. I graduated in 1950. I got a mandatory job assignment in a village. But they didn’t let my husband resign from his work and because of that I was permitted to stay in Kishinev. The same year, in August, I gave birth to a daughter. We named her Anna.
During the first years of our married life we weren’t wealthy; we managed to get by just thanks to my husband’s two jobs. When my baby turned two months old my maternal leave was over, and in accordance with the legislation of that time I was supposed to go back to work. My mother stayed with our little girl. I worked as a psychotherapist. As a matter of fact I changed my working place. The first years of my working experience were marred by the Doctors’ Plot, and because of that people were prejudiced against Jewish doctors. There were dreadful articles about the doctors-murderers. It was very unpleasant. In Moldova we didn’t believe what was written in the papers and in the Soviet regime in general. Frankly speaking, I have never come across anti-Semitism.
