Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000 & January 8, 2001
Anti-Semitism Under Soviets
The Doctors Plot?
No. The Doctors Plot was in '53.
Ah.
Well, '52, '53. Oh, we heard terrible things, you know. The patient uh, didn't let us Jewish, Jewish doctors or Jewish students to touch because we are going to kill them or something like that. Oh that was the sit...terrible situation. But it lasted several months because you know, Stalin died and the, the thing was improved. They let us. They, they, they arrested a lot of Jews uh, in my city and the--I remember they arrested the, the uh, chief doctor in my city, he was Jewish, uh. And, and he survived but, he came back uh. But in '55, that was after Doctor Plot, that was during Khrushchev. In '55 he still was anti-Semitism rampant you know, although there was no Stalin. And I remember in, in co...two month's prior to, to getting the diploma, there was a commission and they called us and they give us assignment and we have to go. That was uh, you couldn't choose where you go. You have to go wherever the Party, Communist Party uh, sends you. You know, for the, for the Homeland, you need. And we knew that we Jews and some other, we were sent far away to the worst part of the Soviet Union, Siberia or, or--we knew that. And that was the, the practice. And I tried to do everything to prevent this. First of all it's, you go there, you're just like, like, like, terrible. You, like a wilderness. Plus to leave my father. Uh, uh, he was old already and his--my, my stepmother was very sick. She had breast cancer at that time and my father had a prostate problem, prostate cancer, and--the reason I'm telling--and I brought documents from the doctors applying and that was written, written in the, in the, in the law that if a student has relatives, close relatives--students--sick and so, they have--they can uh, request to stay close. If not in the same city, but in some vicinity. So I presented this document. Nothing helped. Nothing helped. So when I told them that no, we cannot. The commission was there all the you know, the university and from the Party and the big commission. And the, the, we had everybody in the middle of discussion you know, where to send. And they suggest me to go to far east, there was close to...
[interruption in interview]
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