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Part Three: The Volftsun Siblings 117 instincts about the apartments were correct, and soon the Udler family was offered the choice between a first or third-floor apartment in a so-called Khrushchev building. They chose the third floor, and Rosa's luck was good. Within a year, a big flood destroyed all the first-floor and some second-floor apartments. Apartments on the third floor were spared. Rosa and Moisey worked hard, saved money, and struggled for the education of their children. Their goal, rarely talked about within the family and never outside the family, was that David and Yakov would eventually move to the United States, with the parents to follow later. This was a model followed by millions of Russian Jews, including Iosif and his son Lev. Both David and Yakov attended an elite school that specialized in athletics, where David concentrated on gymnastics and Yakov on soccer. These accomplishments helped when they were conscripted into the Army, resulting in lighter military duty as they continued their athletic training. David received a college degree in metallurgical engineering as an expert in physical metallurgy, extractive metallurgy, and mineral processing. Sending the children to the United States assumed new importance as Russian anti- Semitism began to take its toll. One incident stands out in Rosa's memory. David became sick during examination time and was too ill to sit for his test. He dutifully obtained a medical release and took it to his university to ask for an extension. But the clerk at the university refused to accept the waiver. Later he overheard that clerk on the street, laughing with a iend, saying, "I sure cut that Jew down to size." David was so angered by this raw and petty display of anti-Semitism that he ran home with tears filling his eyes. It was the first time he felt acutely vulnerable as a Jew. Ultimately both sons decided there was no future for them in Russia. Meanwhile Rosa knew she had to fight for her children. She went to the university president Above: David and Yakov in Skulyane, Moldova, 1951. and talked—well, it was more like yelling, she concedes. "I had a loud voice," Rosa says. She told the president that her son was a straight-A student. Why wouldn't the university accept his medical certificate and grant him a waiver? The university president promised to look into it and things worked out, as they generally did when Rosa put her mind to it. David was allowed to take his exams. Rosa was never shy about fighting for what she believed to be justice. Rosa sometimes muses about how her life might have been different if she had grown up in Palestine. As was noted before, Shlomo dreamed about taking the family to Palestine, but never actually implemented the plan. We learn om Rosa that her father was actually more committed to this possibility than we have seen. Rosa recalls that her father was actively searching the border for a good way to cross om Ukraine to Poland without being detected by the border guards. He would take a horse- drawn wagon near the border just for this purpose. It was during one of these expeditions that Shlomo's cart collided with another horse- drawn wagon. In this accident, Shlomo's foot

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