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When a schoolboy, I was fond of reading fiction and liked to retell what I had read. That was the way I developed my abilities of narrator and later it became very useful for me (when I started working as a teacher). For many years I have been engaged in military and patriotic education of schoolchildren and students of technical schools.
[Technical School in the USSR and a number of other countries was a special educational institution preparing specialists of middle level for various industrial and agricultural institutions, transport, communication, etc.] Boys and girls usually listen to me with great interest, especially when I tell them about the blockade of Leningrad.
My brother Epstein Alexander was 3 years older than me. He was talented for music, played piano very well. At school he was very good studying humanitarian subjects, but other subjects were very difficult for him. I helped him in his studies. Alexander was a very sociable person, smiling, cheerful, had good chances with girls.
My brother liked to improvise on the piano. He read much. Our relations were ideal. Unfortunately he died when he was a pupil of the 10th form: he was going home from school and boys played throwing pieces of ice at each other. By chance one of those pieces hit him on his head. 3 days later Alexander died. He was hardly 19. Those 3 days turned my Mom from a brunette into a gray-haired woman. Mom begged the surgeon to save my brother and promised to give him as much money as he wanted, but nothing could be done. My brother did not finish school. It happened right before the war burst out.
[Technical School in the USSR and a number of other countries was a special educational institution preparing specialists of middle level for various industrial and agricultural institutions, transport, communication, etc.] Boys and girls usually listen to me with great interest, especially when I tell them about the blockade of Leningrad.
My brother Epstein Alexander was 3 years older than me. He was talented for music, played piano very well. At school he was very good studying humanitarian subjects, but other subjects were very difficult for him. I helped him in his studies. Alexander was a very sociable person, smiling, cheerful, had good chances with girls.
My brother liked to improvise on the piano. He read much. Our relations were ideal. Unfortunately he died when he was a pupil of the 10th form: he was going home from school and boys played throwing pieces of ice at each other. By chance one of those pieces hit him on his head. 3 days later Alexander died. He was hardly 19. Those 3 days turned my Mom from a brunette into a gray-haired woman. Mom begged the surgeon to save my brother and promised to give him as much money as he wanted, but nothing could be done. My brother did not finish school. It happened right before the war burst out.
Period
Location
Russia
Interview
Mark Epstein
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