That’s me, as a student of Kharkov academy. The picture was taken in one of the auditoria of the academy in 1948.
I finished the war in the Austrian of city Baden near Vienna. After the war, in 1946, I came back home, but I could not envisage my living clearly. I decided to remain in the army. I joined the Moscow military command.
In 1947 I was sent to Kharkov artillery radar academy. It was an encouragement. There was a really big competition, ten to twelve for one seat. There should have been preliminary exams in the military command before taking entrance exams at the academy.
In 1947 a new faculty was opened - the radar faculty. 80 students were accepted, and 13 of them were Jews. We were admitted by competition and they treated us friendly and unbiased. Anti-Semitism wasn't felt during my studies no matter that the times were hard.
In 1948 cosmopolitan trials commenced. The students of the academy were untouched. Nobody changed the attitude towards us, but in general anti-Semitism was displayed in the USSR and remained unpunished.
The 13 Jews from our course were very friendly. There is always a person in the family that can be called the conscience of the family. The whole family would listen to his or her opinion, and would be afraid to fall in his/her estimation.
I think our group of 13 was the conscience of the entire course. People came to us to ask for advice and support. Eight men out of those 13 were excellent students, who obtained golden medals at school, gifted people.
The first graduation class of our faculty was in 1952. There were very few experts in radar and many students of our course were offered high positions: half of the people of the course were conferred the rank of a general.
When the mandatory job assignment process was over, we, the 13 Jews, were not given a mandatory job assignment. Our wives came, we had the graduation parties, but we were not given mandatory job assignments.
The year of 1952 was hard and tough. We stayed jobless for a month. We had feasts, went for a picnic, to the theater, for a stroll .We lived in the hostel with our families.
