When father reached draft age, he was drafted into the tsarist army, where he served in a musicians’ regiment. Father told that the regiment was even called to the palace of the Tsar in Livadiua on the Crimean peninsula, and the musicians played there for the Tsar Nikolay II. When in 1914 World War I was unleashed, father and his regiment went to the front. In late 1915 father was captured by the Austrians and was sent to the Austrian town Reisenberg together with other prisoners of war.

My Father did not tell me much about his captivity. He said that the Austrians made no difference between Jews and non-Jews, there was no antisemitism. Father and other Jewish prisoners of war were not treated differently by the Austrians; they simply took them as Russian soldiers. They all were not held captive for a long time, but were exchanged for Austrian prisoners of war. In 1916 my father was permitted to go home.

These are the musicians of the 3rd regiment’s 5th squadron of Emperor Alexander. The second to the right is my father Moses Zelbert. The picture was taken in Odessa in 1914.