Zin Svirsky is the grandfather of Crestwood student Jake Elin. Zin Svirsky lived in the Soviet Union for 40 years, from 1935 to 1975. Through events such as World War Two, the Cold War and Stalin’s reign, Zin went from growing up in a poor area of the Ukraine to getting an education and becoming one of the most respected and successful Jewish men in all of Moldova. Zin’s life in the Soviet Union shows the importance of oral history. His firsthand accounts of the poverty in the Soviet Union, World War Two, the Soviet university experience, anti-Semitism, and his time working in the Soviet Union are as accurate as can be possible. These experiences have not been tainted by a third party or romanticized. This was the real Soviet experience of the era.