Victor Feldman and his classmates

This is me (in the 2nd row, 2nd from right) with my classmates of the 5th grade at the Russian school in Odessa. The photo was taken in 1927. I started school in 1921. There were a number of Jewish schools in Odessa. Representatives of the department of education came to see my mother trying to convince her to send me to a Jewish school, but she refused. I witnessed the Jewish school fading away in Odessa in the 1930s. Later, when I worked as a teacher of history in a special artillery school, the director of the only Jewish school left in town came to our school to complain that there weren't enough pupils to keep the school operating in the town although 30% of its population was Jewish. There were pupils of various nationalities in my school, but there was no anti-Semitism. I was very fond of history, but we really had more, I'd say, of social science studies than history. Teaching of foreign languages was very poor. I knew German a little. In 1930, after finishing the 7th grade, I went to study at a Rabfak. I shared a room with a man who was married and had children. He was also a party member. Rabfak graduates were well-educated. They formed a new generation of Soviet intellectuals. After finishing the Rabfak school I entered a pedagogical college.