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In 1915 my father and his friend Solomon Levi were taken to the czarist army. They were to serve in cavalry and my father’s horse was also assigned to the army. During World War I my father was wounded in his shoulder. He returned a different person from the war: like many other representatives of poor Jewish families he got fond of revolutionary ideas and dreams about a better life and construction of a communist society. I cannot say what particularly had this effect on my father: it might have been the communist propaganda thrust on soldiers. My father stopped going to the synagogue, joined Komsomol [9], and became the leader of the village poor.
Interview
Asia Matveyuk