Working, Childhood, Anti-Semitism
“For five years I taught in this school, but then they had to fire somebody, and they fired only me and another teacher who was also Jewish. Our principal told us. She didn’t say she was firing us because we were Jews, but we understood it completely. She told me, ‘You’re a very nice woman. You have a good education. You can find a job anywhere. But these women don’t have a good education, they don’t have such a nice character; it would be difficult for them to find a job ….’ That’s why she fired us.”
- Dina Migachyov
“I always wanted to be a doctor. There are entrance exams for medical school, and 1 think 1 failed them twice. Not because I didn’t know enough; because I was a Jew.
I guess it was a rule or policy …the teachers had a big journal for everybody in the class with different subjects. In the back of the journal they put your name, your parent’s names, and your nationality. The word ‘Jew” stands out among the Russians. So kids used to have a practice of going into the journal and flipping to the back page …”
- Inna Brezman