Isaac Bass was born in 1921 in a Jewish family living in the village of Samoteyevichi. This village would be buried and abandoned after the Chernobyl disaster. Administratively, it belongs to the Kostyukovichi Raion of Mogilev Oblast.
In 1934, the Bass family moved to Mogilev, where Isaac finished school.
Following the Nazi invasion of the USSR in late June 1941, Isaac was called up to serve in the Red Army. After completing an accelerated training course for junior officers, Bass was sent to the front as a second lieutenant.
Isaac Bass was wounded several times in the course of the war. Each time, he would return to active duty, changing his place of service and branch of the armed forces. He served in a motor rifle battalion, with the paratroopers, and in a ski destroyer battalion, although his longest term of service was as commander of a reconnaissance platoon. Isaac Bass was awarded three Orders of the Red Star and several medals. However, he did not receive his last Order of the Red Star until 1965. The reason for this delay was that, in the summer of 1944, Isaac was seriously wounded in battle in the vicinity of Vitebsk, and was assigned to a different unit after convalescing. Only twenty years later was the award finally bestowed upon him, having cleared all the bureaucratic hurdles.
Isaac's mother and two sisters were murdered in occupied Mogilev during the war.
After the end of the war, Isaac Bass returned to Mogilev, where he worked as a barber at the train station until his retirement.
Isaac Bass died in 2000.
