Tag #151523 - Interview #78270 (Semyon Gun)

My maternal grandfather Lazar Alpert was born in 1880. Most likely he also came from Borshchagovka. I don't know who his parents were. Lazar said he was a blacksmith from the age of 12. My grandfather was physically very strong. He told me that he could hold an old model gun by the tip of a bayonet with his fingers and his arm stretched. Lazar served in the tsarist army. Nikolay the Second [3] came to the regiment where my grandfather was serving. When he was inspecting the alignment he saw that my grandfather's collar was unbuttoned. Nikolay pointed this out to commanding officer of the regiment. The commanding officer replied that the largest size shirt was too tight for my grandfather and Nikolay ordered that they made an individual uniform to my grandfather. Lazar told me, the soldiers had two meals in the tsarist army: breakfast and lunch, no dinner, but this was plenty of food. Four military got a big casserole of borsch - one liter and a half per person and a bowl of cereal. During WWI my grandfather Lazar was captured by Austrians. He remembered that at first prisoners were taken to the sauna. They received soap and when they applied it on their skin the Austrians turned down the water for few minutes. Grandfather said that the soap was biting sharp into their skin. This was a kind of disinfection that they had. Austrians were loyal to them. There was no suppression.