Parents

Parents about Igor Rotshtein

Igor Rotshtein was born on September 10, 1971 in the Siberian town of Tomsk, Russia, in the family of a doctor and a PhD student. In 1977 he started school 34 and finished it in 1987.

Igor was a lively, sociable and inquisitive boy from childhood. He was very fond of reading. When a child, he was keen on adventures and animals novels. Getting older he was carried away by fantasy novels. As a reader he was a versatile person. And in Igor`s empty flat after the tragedy there was a half-read book by V. Aksenov (one of his favorite writer) “Moscow-kva-kva” with a bookmark… His comrades in arms brought for his son, Leo, the book which Iqor read during short intervals between battles.

Gradually his love for nature developed into a desire to become a doctor, and he did his best to realize his ambition. He went to a medical-biological school and when a senior schoolboy, in his spare time, he worked as a hospital attendant in first-aid hospital. He may have picked up his desire to become a doctor from his mother. There were a lot of medical books in the house and Igor began to read them. When his mother was called to hospital at night, he usually accompanied her and was very proud of it.

In 1987 Igor entered Tomsk State Medical Institute, Medical Faculty. He attended classes with great interest, did research work, and spent a lot of time in clinics with patients. He always dreamt of becoming a surgeon. In 1994 Igor graduated from the Institute and 1995 took specialization in the surgery. He worked in the orthopedic department of First-Aid Hospital until his departure to Israel.

He was considered a good doctor. As his teachers and colleagues used to say, he was “ a doctor from God”. He was a highly skilled, well-read specialist, always interested in new surgical technologies. Friends named him respectfully “Doctor”. He was always tactful and considerate towards his patients. During the funeral unknown people came up to us and thanked us for our son.

In his youth Igor was keen on tourism, every summer he went hiking in the Altai, the Tien-Shan, the Krasnoyarsk Pillars, Stalactite Caves. He always returned with presents and souvenirs for us, full bright impressions and could speak for hours about what he had seen. Later he accompanied tourist groups as a doctor.

People remembered him. After his death we had a condolence call from America, from his teacher in Tomsk State University whose physical-mathematical school Igor had attended twenty years before. There are lots of pupils in the school and, naturally, it is next to impossible to remember all of them. Usually, bright pupils are retained in memory. Such was Igor. When he was a senior student of Medical Institute, he worked as a doctor in a summer camp of this physical-mathematical school. Everybody remembered and loved him, therefore invited to work there.

Besides medicine and literature, Igor was keen on music, he had a good library and a collection of music files. He felt fit, was good at swimming, went in for oriental duels and could stand up for himself.

Igor always had a lot of friends and he himself was a true and reliable friend, a kind and supportive person. And now, a friend of his, Eylon Pedinovsky, is creating the website http://igormem.googlepages.com in Igor’s memory planning to put there the recollections of close relatives and friends and the photos from different periods of Igor`s life.

Igor together with his wife Yulya (Alona) and a 10-month-old son Leva came to Israel in 1997. It was hard for him to take a decision to leave Tomsk, he was quite aware of the responsibility for his family. At first they lived in the kibuts of Gesher, then in the absorbtion centre in Kiryit –Yam. Igor prepared for the examination for Rishaion (Diploma validation) and passed it successfully. After that he worked as a volunteer in several hospitals (Rambam, Karmiel, etc.), but could not find a full-time job despite his professionalism. Now we feel guilty for the fact that we were not with him at that time and did not share his problems.

In 2000 Igor joined the IDF as a doctor on a voluntary basis and was on military service, then he worked another three years by the contract; and last time he served in the Southern military distract and participated in a great number of military operations. He was demobilized from IDF as Captain in 2004. He performed his duties and responsibilities skillfully and conscientiously, and he enjoyed great respect among his army colleagues.

In the autumn of 2004 Igor began to work in surgical orthopedic unit in Poriah hospital in Tiberias. He at once became good friends with the colleagues. At first he worked as a volunteer, then began to work full time. He performed a lot of surgical operations and soon became, as his colleagues said, irreplaceable. His colleagues were badly missing him during the war and were constantly in touch with him.

Igor did research work and made reports on the conferences. He left a lot of copies of fresh papers published in the orthopedic journals which he plan to use for preparation of following reports. Certainly, he had evident talent to research.

Igor was dedicated sun, brother and grandson. He often called us, got interested in our health, sent drugs to us. Saving us from excitement, he didn`t tell us much about service in IDF. The last time he came from the hospital to Beer-Sheva to visit his mother and sister, a doctor-surgeon of hospital “Soroka”, was on July 13, 2006. He spent only 1 day with them. Igor last saw his father in the summer of 2005 and then communicated with him only by phone.

On the July 24, 2006 Igor went as a volunteer to the 2-th Lebanese War. Shortly before this in phone talk with his father he said that in case of military draft he will serve only as combat doctor the place where he was needed most of all. He went to serve as a battalion doctor in the brigade “Golani”.

On the night of August 4, 2006 Igor was killed in the battle in Lebanese village of Markabe saving the wounded soldier Daniel Shiran. And this deed speaks for itself, this is what Igor really was: a doctor, a soldier, a true man. Daniel`s father, also a doctor, called us and expressed his great admiration by Igor`s act.

During a month`s mouning we were visited by our relatives, Igor`s and our friends and by a great number of other people, the President of Israel M. Katsav among them, by leaders of different parties, all of them trying to support us. Igor`s colleagues, soldiers with whom Igor went to the last battle also came to see us. The father of one of them, Yohay’s father, parting with us said : “Everybody wants to kill us, but we will live as long as there are people like your son”.

In Moscow, on October 18, 2006 meeting the parents of killed soldiers, the Prime – minister of Israel E.Olmert came up to us and said : “ I know everything about your son”.