Moisey Podberezin was born in 1936 in Tver (Kalinin), Russia. Before the war, his father had joined the Red Army. In October 1941, Germans occupied Tver. Moisey fled the occupation with his mother, Roza Podberezin, his sister, Clara Shapiro, and his grandmother, Masha Doba Pritsker. The family hid in the forest near a village named Viosky. After three days in the forest, they entered the village and sought refuge in a school with other people fleeing the Germans. After a few weeks, reports reached Moisey and his family that Tver had been liberated, so the family returned. On returning to Tver, the family discovered the Germans were still occupying the area. The family then lived in the ghetto of Tver from October 5, 1941, until December 16, 1941. They were marked for transport on December 17, 1941, for extermination at the concentration camp in the village of Ilyino in the Tver region. But before they could be transported, the city of Tver (Kalinin) was liberated by the Soviet Army on December 16, 1941. Moisey Podberezin finished high school and attended university to be a teacher in Tver. He became an English and German teacher in 1963. In February 2003, Moisey and his wife, Zhanna Podberezin, immigrated to the United States via Los Angeles, before settling in Chicago in August of 2005.