Henrich Kurizkes with his school friend Klementiy Kamusher

This is me (on the right) with my school friend Klementiy Kamusher. During the war we fought in the Estonians Corps together. In Kurland Klementiy was wounded in his leg and had it amputated. After the war he lived in Moscow and graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University. He completed his thesis and married a girl from Moscow. He died from a serious disease when he was still young. This photo was taken in Tallinn in 1935. I was born in 1924, and I was the only child in the family. My parents were moderately religious. Of course, all Jewish traditions were well observed in our household. My father didn't follow the requirement to do no work on the Sabbath. Saturday was another working day for him. However, we followed all the rules on Jewish holidays. . When I was six I went to the private Russian gymnasium. After I studied for four years in the Russian school, Estonian authorities issued an order directing all non-Estonian children to study either in their own language, or in an Estonian school. So I had to quit my Russian school and my parents sent me to a private English college. It was expensive, but they wanted to give me a good education. We wore uniforms at school: gray suits and light colored shirts. They were made by individual orders. There were no poor children in our college. There were also many Jewish children in college. We never faced any anti-Semitic demonstrations from our Estonian schoolmates. Jewish children were well respected at school. Our tutor always told Jewish children about the forthcoming Jewish holiday and we were allowed to stay away from school on this day. All of my school friends were Jewish. Of course, some of my friends were Estonian. We used to play football with Estonian boys, our neighbors. However, we never visited them at home. My real close friends were Jewish. I don?t know how it happened to be this way. All I can say is that my parents never put any pressure on me in this respect. This was my choice. This was the way it happened to be.