The book provides the following details: 1. It was 1940, since soon after they left for the military academy the Russian-Finnish war started. The comments incorrectly implied that the boys were misled as to being sent to the academy and instead sent to the front. Not quite true, per book. Let's not forget that even in the chaos and terror of this time in Soviet Russia there was a certain pathological, but logic. 2. Only one of the friends was killed during the WWII-Viktor. The other became a doctor and was killed during Stalin's 1949-1952 wave of anti-Jewish terror. So called 'Delo Vrachey'. 3. The 'small' town in the book was actually Odessa which is neither small nor indistinct from both economic and cultural standpoint. PT
Review of Do svidaniya, malchiki!
