Yisrael Krasnikov was born in Konotop, Ukraine, in 1912. Both his father, Shlomo, and his mother, Mikhlia, came from families of hereditary tailors. Because his family was poor, Shlomo had to drop out of school after four years of study, at the age of eleven. Following in his ancestors' footsteps, he then began to learn the tailor's craft. As an adult, he had to support a large family of eight children. From 1925, Shlomo worked in a private garment workshop, and later in a large artel.
Konotop was home to a sizeable Jewish community, which made up about twenty percent of the town's total population in the mid-1920s. Jewish life in the town was vibrant and meaningful, and the Krasnikovs were observant, attending the synagogue and celebrating the Jewish holidays. Yisrael joined the Komsomol at the age of fifteen, and took part in the Soviet collectivization campaign, including the requisitioning of grain from the local population.
From 1934 to 1937, Yisrael served in the Soviet Navy in the Crimea. In 1939, as a Soviet activist, he was sent to Western Ukraine to assist in the Sovietization of the recently annexed region. His wife, whom he had married earlier that year, moved there with him. In 1940, Yisrael joined the Communist Party. He initially worked in the district Komsomol committee in the town of Brody, and later served as editor of the local newspaper, and as the manager of a sewing artel. By the time of the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, his wife was eight months pregnant.
On the very first day of the war, June 22, 1941, Brody came under heavy attack, because of its proximity to the border. For the next seven days, Yisrael took part in the fighting near Brody, and he later managed to evacuate to Ternopol, and thence to Kiev by train. There, he was drafted into the Red Army and appointed the political officer of a machine gun company. They defended the Dnieper for a few days, but were eventually forced to retreat deeper into the Ukrainian interior, to avoid encirclement. However, the Nazis were advancing rapidly, and Yisrael's unit ended up in occupied territory. For two months, he wandered behind the German lines. On two occasions, he narrowly avoided being captured and killed as a Jew. In October 1941, Yisrael reached Kursk, where he finally encountered some Red Army units. Since he had kept his identification papers sewn into his sleeve, he was able to prove his identity, and, after a perfunctory check, he was sent back to frontline duty, becoming editor of the divisional newspaper Boevoe Znamia (“Banner of Battle”).
During the retreat of the Red Army and subsequent offensives, Yisrael and his two co-workers ensured the daily publication of the newspaper. To this end, they had to transport a heavy portable offset printing machine (rotaprint) from place to place. This task was particularly challenging during the autumn and winter, when the roads were impassable, and the editors risked falling behind the Soviet troops and being captured by the Nazis. Yisrael stayed with the division all the way to Berlin, and he was especially proud of the fact that it was the soldiers of his division who had flown the Soviet red flag over the Reichstag.
After the end of the war, Yisrael continued to serve in the military until 1946, staying in Germany throughout that period. He successfully located his family, who had survived in the Soviet interior, and brought his wife and daughter to join him. His parents and sisters had also managed to escape from Konotop and survive, but one of his brothers had been killed in action, while the other had been murdered by the Nazis in Konotop in 1941.
After being discharged in 1946, Yisrael and his family moved to Chernovtsy, Ukraine. He worked there as deputy secretary for ideological work in the Communist Party committee of a hosiery factory, engaging in agitation and propaganda activities. Despite leading a relatively privileged life (by the standards of the Soviet provinces), he was dismayed by the growing antisemitism in the country, which led many of his friends to move to Israel. Eventually, his daughter decided to move there, as well, and was finally able to do so in 1973. Her emigration resulted in Yisrael being expelled from the Communist Party. Two years later, he was reunited with her in Israel.
