Fifth line

Fifth line or fifth record (Russian: Пятая графа), Fifth point (Russian: Пятый пункт) is a Russian euphemism that originated in the Soviet Union, which indicated that an individual belonged to a certain ethnic group. In the Soviet Union, line number 5 for indicating ethnicity was on the Personal Record Sheet (Russian: Личный листок по учёту кадров) used by the passport departments of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (and not in the Soviet passport itself, as is often mistakenly believed). It was also on similar forms used by personnel departments of all state organizations. In the passport itself, the data fields, including "национальность" (natsionalnost), were not numbered. Most often, it was a euphemism for the Jewish ethnicity, such as in the expressions "he has problems with his fifth line", due to anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. People whose fifth record said "Jew" were discriminated against in various ways.