Vladimir Gelfand - Biography

Biography

From May 1942 until November 1946 he served as a soldier in the Red Army. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from the year 1943. In 1952 he graduated from the Gorky University in Molotov). From 1952 until 1983 he worked as teacher of history at the PTU.

The secondWorld War rapidly changed Vladimir Gelfand's course of life. He saw many dead people on the ground. After serving at the front, Gelfand, a young Ukrainian Jew, witnessed destruction and death, experienced comradeship and treachery and discovered foreign places in occupied Germany. In his diaries form the years 1941 to 1946, Gelfand wrote of his relentless grapple with the hated military. He described the fights, the politics and occupation. He goes to the tailor, buys at the black market, visits pubs, learns how to take photographs and makes his own peculiar experiences with women. He is a sensitive observer and accomplice in one and he does not attempt to conceal his acts of revenge and looting. Gelfand's diaries are a unique chronicle of the early Soviet occupation of Germany.

A printed version in Russian does not exist.