Iosif Mistetskiy

This is my older brother Iosif Mistetskiy, who perished in 1945. Here he was photographed after finishing the Military Infantry School in Simferopol. He sent this photo to my mother and me. It was taken in Simferopol in 1939. Iosif finished the 7th grade and courses of electric mechanics. He worked as an electrician in our village. He was smart. There was no electricity in other villages before the Great Patriotic War, but he managed to provide electricity in our village. The kolkhoz bought a power machine and Iosif installed an autonomous power plant. Iosif went to Krivoy Rog, where he worked as an electrician in a mine. Then he was recruited to the army. After demobilization he entered the infantry school in Simferopol in the Crimea. After finishing this school he stayed to serve in a military unit in this town. During World War II I corresponded with Iosif. My older brother wrote to me. He was in evacuation. He finished an infantry school and went to the front in the rank of lieutenant. By the end of the war he was in the rank of captain. He was chief of the regiment intelligence unit in the 3rd Baltic Front near Konigsberg [today Kaliningrad, Russia]. He wrote to me saying that he wanted me to serve in his unit. His division headquarters sent a request about my transfer to the commanding officer of my unit. In March 1945 our commander of battalion asked me to tell my brother that we would meet after the war since my division needed me very much. He promised to let me go to my brother's unit after the war. I wrote the letter, but it returned with the stamp: 'The addressee is unavailable'. I knew what it meant. Later I got to know that my brother perished on 29th May 1945 in Eastern Prussia.