Ram Altshuler was born in 1926 in the town of Novorzhev (Pskov Oblast), in a Jewish family. Ram's father was a career military officer. Because of this, the Altshuler family frequently had to move to different regions of the USSR. In the late 1930s, they finally settled in Leningrad. Ram finished a seven-year school in this city.
As a child in a Young Pioneer camp, Altshuler became interested in target shooting, hoping to win a badge of honor.
In late June 1941, when the Soviet-German War broke out, the fifteen-year-old Ram was vacationing in the city of Pskov, which was subjected to enemy bombing already in early July. He and his mother were able to evacuate to the Ural region. However, Ram had a strong desire to become a frontline soldier. Initially, he worked at an arms factory in Perm, which gave him an exemption from military service. Twice, he tried to escape and enlist in the army, but was caught and returned on both occasions.
In the winter of 1943, after the lifting of the siege of Leningrad, Ram returned to the city and found a job as a driver. Throughout that time, he kept hoping that his exemption would be canceled, but in vain. In the end, by bribing the employees of the recruitment office with alcohol (a scarce commodity in those days), he was able to get himself assigned to the Leningrad Guards Rifle Regiment. He then volunteered for a snipers' course. After undergoing training, Ram finally became a frontline fighter. He took part in military engagements in the Leningrad area in the winter of 1944, and went on to fight in the Baltic region, Poland, and Germany. Altshuler was seriously wounded on three occasions. His third wounding took place in Polish territory shortly before the end of the war. He was treated at a hospital in Leningrad. In the course of the war, he was awarded the Order of Glory, 3rd class, and some medals.
When the war was over, Ram Altshuler had to serve out his tour of duty –because, at that time, the period of frontline service did not count toward the total term of military service. Ram was assigned to the Soviet Navy. After being discharged, he continued his education: first at a night school, where he received his matriculation certificate, and later at the Alexander Herzen Pedagogical Institute. His admission to the Institute took place against the backdrop of the campaign against the "rootless cosmopolitans." Because of the antisemitic atmosphere in the USSR at that time, he was barred from several other institutions of higher learning, which he would have preferred.
After graduating from the Institute in the late 1960s, Altshuler began to work as a biology schoolteacher. He went on to defend a dissertation in biology, becoming a candidate, and later a doctor, of the pedagogical sciences. In the last years before his retirement, Altshuler headed the Pedagogical Department of the St. Petersburg State Technological Institute (Technical University).
In the late 1980s, Ram Altshuler became involved in the efforts to memorialize the victims of the Holocaust and the Jews who had died in World War II. In the early 1990s, to counteract the growing popularity of the antisemitic Pamyat society, he founded the "Shoah" memorial association in St. Petersburg, which represented Jewish war veterans, ghetto inmates, partisans, and survivors of the siege of Leningrad. This organization launched many public campaigns, including the creation and digitization of lists of Jews who had been killed in the defense of Leningrad. This was followed by the plan to create an exhibition dedicated to the Holocaust. The association collaborated with national-cultural organizations in various countries. As part of this project, Altshuler visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel in 2000.
Ram Altshuler died in St. Petersburg in 2010, aged eighty-four.
