Yosif Shinkar was born in 1918 in Vakhnovka – a village near Vinnitsa, Ukraine, which was home to few Jews. He was one of four children. His father Shika, who worked as a tailor, was killed in one of the pogroms of the Russian Civil War, along with forty-four other Jews from the vicinity. Their house was burned down, and Yosif's mother died shortly afterward. The four children became orphans. Yosif was taken in by one of their neighbors, a shoemaker named Mendel Sherman, who had managed to survive the pogrom.
At the age of fourteen, Yosif began to work as a haymaker and shepherd at a collective farm. Since that was the time of the Ukrainian famine (the Holodomor), life on the farm was very hard, so he decided to leave it and join a colony for orphans and homeless children. There, he experienced living side by side with thieves and other delinquents, and was forced to adopt "adult" behaviors.
Shinkar was drafted into the Red Army in 1940, and served in a tank brigade in Kishinev (Moldavia), in territory that had been annexed from Romania that same year. In July 1941, following the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, Kishinev was occupied by the Nazis. Shinkar participated in the defense of the city, and then retreated with the Soviet troops. He was later wounded in the battles for Izium (Ukraine), and spent three months in a hospital. After returning to active duty in the rank of senior sergeant, he was appointed commander of an artillery unit. His job was moving a multi-ton howitzer between different sectors of the front line, with the help of a six-horse team. His efficiency largely depended on the condition of the local roads. Sometimes, he was forced to prioritize feeding the horses over keeping his soldiers alive.
Yosif's unit also took part in heavy combat in the Baltic region. On one occasion, his howitzer engaged in an artillery duel with a Nazi naval gun, and his soldiers managed to sink the enemy transport.
After the end of the war, Shinkar returned to Ukraine and settled in Vinnitsa, where he married. He went on to have a son and a daughter. In the 1990s, the whole family moved to Israel.
