Philip Tseitlin

Philipp Tseitlyn died from a heart attack in 1968. He was buried in the Danilovskoe cemetery in Stavropol, Russia.

After the Far East, he was sent to post-war Germany, where he served until 1948. At that time, the campaign against cosmopolitanism was in full swing. Anti-cosmopolitanism targeted Jews and as a result, many Jewish officers were sent back to the USSR – they were not trusted to project Soviet power abroad. Next, Philipp was sent to serve in Riga, Latvia and following that, he served in a military hospital in Stavropol, Russia. One time, he was walking across the territory of the hospital and noticed a soldier who was pretending to be iller than he truly was in order to avoid serving. In a rage, the soldier hit Philipp on the head with a stick. Philipp, however, refused to press charges. After an honorable discharge in 1960, he initially worked in a clinic, but could not bear it; he was used to treating patients from start to finish and expected that his medical recommendations would be followed. In the clinic, however, it often happened that he would see the patient only once- somebody from a remote village perhaps - without much chance to control the treatment, and it was too much for his doctor's conscience. In the last couple years of his life, he consulted in the "for-a-fee” clinic. Health care was generally free in the USSR, but after the war there were small doctors' offices where a patient could, for a nominal fee, get a consultation from a specialist. These clinics were considered premium services at the time.

Philipp enlisted in the Army in 1935 as a commissioned officer.

At the age of 17, Philipp entered the Crimean University and followed this education by completing medical school at the Kuban State Medical School in 1929. After graduation, he was sent to help eradicate the cholera epidemic in the Caspian steppes.

Philipp was born in Feodosia, Crimea. He was the second child of five – he had three brothers and a sister. Their mother died in 1918 at the age of 38 and their father remarried. The stepmother was not too kind to Philipp and his siblings; she showed preference to her own son. She however, forced all of the kids to read – she would lock them in the closet and since there was nothing else to do, the kids read. Later in life, they appreciated this harsh treatment as it made them extremely literate. Philipp left home early to work at a tobacco factory. Ever since, he was adept at tightening all kinds of knots.

Philipp Mishelevich Tseitlyn (Филипп Мишелевич Цейтлин) (1905–1968) was а lieutenant colonel and medical doctor in the Soviet Army.