Boris Maizelev (Maisels) was born in the town of Gadiach in Poltava Province in 1902. His father, David, worked as a glazier, while his mother, Fruma, was a seamstress. When Boris was ten, his family moved to the town of Romny in the same province, where he finished his primary schooling and went on to study at the Commercial School. After completing it, he received a matriculation certificate.
Following the Russian Revolution, Boris became fired up with its ideals. For a time, he attended the special Courses for Red Commanders. Then, from 1919 to 1921, he fought in the Russian Civil War on the Bolshevik side. Serving in Voroshilov's cavalry, he took part in the fighting against Denikin's White Army in southern Russia, and against Yudenich's troops near Petrograd. He was wounded in the course of the war, and discharged from the army in the rank of a Red Commander. In the postwar period, Boris joined the Tzeirei Zion movement, and became an enthusiastic Zionist.
From 1921 to 1939, Boris worked in an air defense unit subordinated to the Signal Corps, moving between different Ukrainian cities (Dnepropetrovsk, Kiev, Chernigov). In 1939, following the annexation of eastern Poland by the USSR in the aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, he was sent to Lviv and appointed head of the local Air Defense Office. In 1939-1940, Boris Maizelev witnessed the deportation of a large number of Jewish people from Lviv. Most of these deportees were members of religious or Zionist circles, as well as those deemed "bourgeois" by the Soviet authorities. Some of them were Jews who had escaped into the Soviet Union from the Nazis, and then refused the offer of Soviet citizenship in 1940.
By this time, Boris had married a woman named Rachel Sherman, and the couple had three children (two sons and a daughter). He and his family remained in Lviv until the outbreak of the Soviet-German War. In late June 1941, he helped his wife and children evacuate into the Soviet interior. Several days later, he himself was ordered to leave Lviv, as the Nazis were closing in on the city. He managed to reach Kiev, where he was appointed company commander in the 6th Army. That army remained on the left bank of the Dnieper, and was then forced to retreat. However, it was soon surrounded by the enemy. This was part of the great encirclement of Soviet troops known as the “Kiev Cauldron.” Boris was captured and sent to a POW camp in Kremenchug. He would recall that the Nazis announced repeatedly that any inmate who exposed a Jewish POW would receive extra food. Many of the captive Red Army soldiers took them up on their offer. A month later, Boris and two other inmates successfully escaped. With the help of local peasants, they procured civilian clothes and fake documents. He went on to move from village to village behind German lines, doing odd jobs for the locals in exchange for food.
In December 1942, Boris finally managed to cross over to the Soviet side in the North Caucasus region. He was interrogated by a major of the Special Department of the Southern Front. The interrogator refused to believe that Boris was a Jew who had managed to survive German captivity, and accused him of being a German spy. Fortunately, Boris' identity was confirmed by Captain Khasin, a prewar colleague of his from the Air Defense Office, who now served in the Special Department. Having been cleared of suspicion, Boris was attached to the 44th Army as lieutenant-technician and commander of a communications company. He stayed with it until the end of the war. Boris saw action in Russian and Ukrainian territory, and later in Poland and Czechoslovakia. He continued to serve in Germany after V-E Day, and was discharged in 1946.
Boris then returned to Lviv, and his family also came back there from the Soviet interior. In the early 1950s, with the late Stalinist antisemitic campaign in full swing, Boris Maizelev lost his job as a communication engineer. From 1956 to 1972, he worked as a construction engineer. According to his subsequent recollections, he realized even then that the attitude to Jews in the USSR had only worsened. In the early 1960s, he witnessed the transformation of a synagogue in Lviv into a sports club. On the major Jewish holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, observant Jews would gather in various private homes (including Boris Maizelev's apartment) to pray in secret. The authorities hounded these Jews and imposed various restrictions on them. In 1973, after several months of bureaucratic hassle, Boris and his family left the USSR for Israel.
Related Resources
Recollections of Boris Maizelev about the attitude to Jews in the Red Army
[In 1942,] when I crossed the Terek River and emerged on the other bank, I was immediately detained by a Red Army patrol, which proceeded to escort me to the Special Department of the Southern Front. A major of the Special Department of that front, whose last name I do not know, began to interrogate me. He refused to believe that I was a Jew, seeing as the Germans had not killed me. He kept trying to get me to confess that I had crossed the frontline at the Germans' behest. I was interrogated 2-3 times a day, by different officers. For almost a week, I was deprived of sleep, by day and by night. They kept asking me: "If you are a Jew, how come you're alive?" Fortunately, one of the employees of the Department happened to know me. Once, during an interrogation, a captain walked into the room. I would later learn that his last name was Khasin. The major turned to him: "Now look at this Jewish idiot! He's passing himself off as a Jew, -- he pointed at me, -- even though he is a German spy! You should talk to him." Khasin began to interrogate me in the major's presence. I told him everything in detail. When I mentioned having worked as chief of the Air Defense Office of the regional Signal Corps in Dnepropetrovsk from 1937 to 1939, he recalled my last name, and even spoke my first name aloud. Shortly after this conversation, I was released, and three days later I received a new posting in the Red Army.
From: Yad Vashem Archives, O.3
