It was 1953, at the time of the infamous Doctors Plot. In the last throes of Stalin’s rule a huge antisemitic campaign has begun. It was supposed to culminate with pogroms and mass deportations of Jews to Siberia. My mother was then a young doctor at a clinic treating coal miners in Stalino (now Donetzk). My father was working as a lab chemist at the chemical reagents factory. One day my mother was arrested. My father was watching her taken on a motorcycle for interrogation. They showed her a prescription supposedly written and signed by her. My mother has a distinct handwriting, and it was obviously different from that writing. Another doctor at the same clinic has written this prescription and signed my mother’s name.

My father was very organized. He kept locking the drawers in the lab to prevent his tools from disappearing. In the general atmosphere of suspicions toward the Jews someone called for an investigation. Maybe my father is plotting something sinister. My father was then transferred from the lab to the factory floor. Possibly his boss was trying to protect him from accusations. But my father took it as an insult and resigned.

After these two incidents my parents and I went back to Chernowitz to live with their parents.

My Mother As A Doctor and Father in The Lab (1950’s)

More: Tales my Mother Told Me