The Story of Alexander Borisovich

Aleksandr Borisovich was born a Jew in the XIX century in the Russian Empire. Bad luck seemed to have followed him ever since.

He won a gold medal at school. That wasn't good enough to enter a univeristy. Before revolution Russian universities had a 5% limit for Jews. Which seems like a lot, but Jews were also concentrated in certain locations (thanks to the pale - cherta osedlosti) and were not allowed to go to Moscow or St Petersburg, so there was a limited number of universities they could enter. That was why only Jews with gold medals (100% As) could enter and there was a long waiting list eventhen. He waited and manged to enter the medical school at Kiev University after a year or two.

Then WWI started... After less than a year of freedom following the bloodless February revolution, Bolshevik putsch ignited the bloody civil war. He lived through WWI and WWII, but civil war was the worst of all. There was no front. People with guns were attacking people without... Jewish villages in the Ukraine were targeted by the reds, then by the whites, then by the pinks and the blues and all the other bandits.

I think he was in Murmansk during WWII. It was there that he developed some of his novel surgical techniques. He became quite famous; was doing well; very popular with women as far as I could gather from the words of my grandma. Then came Stalin's campaign against the Jews. It was targeting all prominent Jews, but particularly doctors. Aleksandr Borisovich was sent to Gulag. Thankfully Stalin died and Alkeksandr was let out... He became top ophthalmologist in Chelyabinsk. His name has an entry in the medical encyclopedia. He cured eyes, but by the time I met him he could no longer see for himself.

Nor could he walk. His daughter and her husband, who did not have any kids of their own, were taking care of him. His wife had already died... Alexander outlived most of his contemporaries; he was coming up to 90. Yet his head was 100% bright and his knowledge was amazing. He remembered historic events as if they had happened the day before. I recall his stories about Anglo-Boer war of the early 20th century and many many others...

He was a humanist and a Zionist and anti-communist. Having read and learnt quite a bit since I still agree with everything he said then. Which is quite something considering the shortage of information we had in the USSR under the communist censorship.

Alexander had a great collection of coins - the ones he could not see. They were literally from everywhere, going back hundreds of years. I would pick a coin and tell him what it said, which country it was from and he would tell me what it was like then, who the rulers were, which wars they fought...

I was ~15 or something. The man was old and ugly. He was blind and he smelt... At first I would be almost disgusted on entering his room. Yet within 5 minutes I would forget all about it and start treating him like an older friend. He had a young and inquisitive spirit.

Why did he bother with me? I think he really appreciated the company. The man was lonely... His daughter and her husband were really nice, but they were not very bright.

Alexander died a couple of years before Perestroika kicked in. It was a long life to spend in a prison camp named USSR. Yet that blind incapacitated ninety year old man had the freedom that very few people have. It was freedom gained by knowledge combined with a sharp mind and strong will. He left a mark on me.