Eizer Alpert

This is a photo of my brother Eizer Isaakovich Alpert.
This photo was taken on 23rd March, 1945 in some hospital on the territory of the USSR.

In 1921 my parents married, and in 1922 my brother was born. My brother was called Eizer, or Izaya at home.

My brother went to the army, just after his graduation from school at the age of 18. When World War II started, he was in the Crimea and retreated together with the Soviet army through Kerch.
Almost nobody survived from their infantry unit.

My mother and I were in evacuation, when he was sent to the school of political officials, and he came to Saratov.
That was a horror! Cut greatcoat, cut shoes, he looked as if he's just come from the trench. After he finished the school of political officials, he found himself in the artillery unit.

He lost a foot in Germany, I don't know where exactly. And that was very sad. The war was over in May 1945, and in January 1945 he stepped on a mine, and his foot was blown away.
So he didn't have his leg below the knee and for the rest of his life he wore an artificial leg.