Fifth line

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Fifth line or fifth record (Russian: Пятая графа), Fifth point (Russian: Пятый пункт), is an euphemism used in the Soviet Union for belonging to a certain ethnic group. In the Soviet Union, line number 5 for indicating person's ethnicity was in the form of the Personal Record Sheet for the personnel (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), on the basis of which the passport was issued; as well as in similar sheets of the departments and departments of personnel of all state organizations.^[1] In the passport itself, the data fields, including "национальность" (natsionalnost) were not numbered.

Most often it was euphemism for the Jewsish ethnicity in the expressions, such as "he has problems with his fifth line": due to anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, people whose fifth record said "Jew" were discriminated in various ways.^[2]