It was rare for Jewish women to practice radiology in post-Stalinist Russia, but that’s what Diana Amastis, now 95, did for most of her life in St. Petersburg in the 1950s and ’60s. She left that life in 1992, at the age of 64, to make New York her new home. She came with her daughter and granddaughter, to care for her ailing father, who had left Russia years earlier and lived in Washington Heights. Dr. Amastis remembers spending most days during her first years in the city caring for her granddaughter, who took English lessons at a school near their home. Dr. Amastis would wait outside the classroom to glean useful phrases, but she never felt confident about her command of the language.

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Persons: Diana Amastis, Amastis Locations: Russia, St . Petersburg, New York, Washington Heights