Tatiana Tilipman’s older brother Moisey Krupnik

This is my older brother Moisey Krupnik. This photo was taken in Yampol in 1930.

My brother Moishe-Iehil, born in 1909. He was named after my maternal grandfather and in his passport he had the name of Moisey written. At home he was called Lusik. Moisey studied in a vocational school in Glimbovka in our district. He studied drawing and embroidery. Moisey was one of the best read people in our town. He read Russian and French classics. I remember the The Laughing Man novel [by a French Romantic writer Victor Hugo], it was read to a lattered condition since everybody borrowed this book from him. A few of my brother's friends were teachers and one was a local doctor. In 1929 Moisey finished a vocational school in Glimbovka and went to teach drawing at school some place in Vinnitsa region.

Moisey married his childhood friend Hana Krutianskaya in 1933. They got married secretly since their parents were against their marriage: Jewish rules do not allow a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law to have the same name and my mother's name was also Hana [Editor's note: This was a custom among some branches of the ultra-Orthodox.] I remember that after the wedding our neighbor came to see my mother. He said: 'Hana, don't worry. Moisey will be all right. Our acacia in the yard withered. It withered so that nothing bad happened to Moisey'. Moisey went to live with his wife in Odessa and they lived in Malaya Arnautskaya Street. He worked as an accountant in the tuberculosis institute in Belinskiy Street where there is a regional tuberculosis clinic now. In 1935 Hana and Moisey's son Bencion was born.

On 22 June 1941 the Great Patriotic War began. Moisey was mobilized to marine troops in Odessa on 23 June. He only managed to pick his newly born daughter Tamara from a maternity hospital to take her home and left for the front. He didn't even have time to unwrap her to take a look at his baby. In summer 1942 we received Moisey's first letter that he wrote in Sevastopol on 28 July. It happened to be the last one. Moisey perished in Sevastopol. We don't know any details.