The men were taken into the army; my sisters were on their own living their own lives.  I was the baby and lived at home with my mother.   When I was 16, we were evacuated to Buchara, Uzbekistan.  There, my mother died from dysentery, she was poisoned from the water. I had no money to pay for her funeral and so I used her earrings to pay for her burial.  

 

From Buchara, I traveled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan.  There I met my husband who was originally from Vilna who was also alone.  I worked in a bakery for food, for bread and later in a barber shop.  My husband had a job as a watchman at a brick factory.

 

After the war, we went to Vienna but all of my husband’s family was dead as was my family in Cherkassy, Ukraine.

 

My husband and I left for America in 1951 where Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) settled us to Omaha, Nebraska.  We lived there for 13 years.  We liked it there but my husband’s sister and a brother were in Detroit and so we moved here.

 

My niece who was a child in hiding with a Gentile family and later at an orphanage, found me years later.  She lives in Israel and calls me twice a day.  

 

Be healthy. Be nice and good, try not to hurt anyone. Help others in need. Remember what we went through, what I and others went through.