Tag #128930 - Interview #99859 (Isaac Serman)

I became a party member during the war. I did not believe in the Party, but I believed in the Soviet regime. Though, at that time my opinion was ambiguous. I was appalled by things I saw in Russia. I remember I felt so horrible when I saw a Soviet kolkhoz in Leningrad oblast for the first time. They looked so poor and miserable. I was perplexed with the Soviet order, but at that time we did not know things, revealed after the Twentieth Party Congress [32] and later. I knew for sure that I was keeping abreast with the Soviet army on the way to Estonia, to liberate my Estonia from German occupants, and not merely liberate, but to build a new true life. I believed that the Soviet regime could do things like that.

There was no anti-Semitism during the war. It was during the first years of the First Estonian Republic and during the Soviet time. It was an exception in military time. There were about 500 Jews in our corps, but I never came across anti-Semitism towards me. There were a lot of Jewish officers. I finished the war with the rank of major. There were Jewish doctors in our corps. Two of them were from Rakvere, Doctor Zaltsman and Doctor Faiman. My brother Meishe, who was commander of the rear hospital, had the rank of captain of medical service.

I have a Red Star Order for the battle in Velikiye Luki. The medal for the Defense of Leningrad is also dear to me as well as an Order of the Great Patriotic War of the 2nd class [33] for battles in Latvia. After the war I was given an Order of the Great Patriotic War of the 1st class.