Photostat of a portrait of a Soviet Jewish POW after his escape

Joseph Vinnitsky was born on April 20, 1913, to Jewish parents in Lipovets, USSR (Ukraine). He later lived in Kiev. During World War II (1939-1945), he served in the Soviet Army. In June 1941, Germany violated the German-Soviet Pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Joseph was imprisoned in a German prisoner of war (POW) camp in the Soviet Union. In 1942, he escaped and traveled to Chernigov, Poltava, Sumy, and Kursk oblasts. He rejoined the army and was stationed in January 1944 in a small village, where he encountered twenty Jewish families, about sixty people, living in hiding. The Germans entered the village looking for Jews and anyone harboring Jews. As they went door to door, a non-Jewish bookkeeper, P.S. Zirchenko, convinced them that there were no Jews in the village. The Germans soon departed. Shortly after, Joseph wrote to Ilya Ehrenburg, a Soviet journalist and novelist, who said he would include the experience in his Black Book of Russian Jewry. Joseph was stationed in 1945 in Sofia, Bulgaria. On May 7, Germany surrendered to the Western Allies, and on May 9 to the Soviets. During his service, Joseph attained the rank of Lieutenant.

Joseph married Rozalia Smoilowsky, born on October 17, 1918, in Ukraine, and the couple had two children. Many of Joseph and Rozalia’s family members were killed during the Holocaust. In 1979, Joseph and his family settled in New Haven, Connecticut, with assistance from the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven. He became a naturalized citizen on April 12, 1985.