Iosif Tubin was born in 1922 in Kherson, southern Ukraine. In 1941, before Operation Barbarossa began, he graduated from a school for medical orderlies (feldshers) in his town and was drafted into the Red Army as a paramedic. With the beginning of the war in June 1941, Tubin was attached to the medical company of an artillery regiment and, together with it, took part in the retreat of the Red Army in the summer and fall of 1941. In the fall of 1941, Tubin was transferred to Novorossiisk, on the Black Sea shore, and assigned to the 83rd Naval Rifle Brigade. In August-September 1942, medical orderly Tubin took part in the defense of the town, where he was wounded and then sent to a hospital in Tbilisi, Georgia (the Caucasus). There he not only underwent medical treatment, but also treated soldiers who were wounded more seriously than he was. For example, he succeeded in healing the Russian pilot Aleksandr Serebriakov, whose case most doctors had considered hopeless. 1 After Tubin's release from the hospital, he served as a medical orderly on the minesweeper "Beloberezhie."
Tubin was awarded the Order of the Red Star and some medals. His highest rank was that of second lieutenant.
At the end of 1943 Tubin was transferred to the MGB (a precursor of the KGB), and for several years worked with the MGB branch in the town of Poti, Georgia. In 1952, during Stalin's anti-Jewish campaign, he was purged from the political police and moved to Leningrad.
In 1995 Iosif Tubin immigrated to Israel.
- 1. Vladimir Ytkinson, Etot den' my priblizhali kak mogli. Tel-Aviv, 2005, pp. 140-141.
