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Thank you to Liza Uchitel, Care Manager JSSA, for assisting in obtaining the interview. Born in Leningrad, Russia, USSR,1937. She survived the Siege of Leningrad (September 1941). In May 1942, “we were taken by train in the last group leaving the city to escape from famine and a disease-stricken city.” Although she was very young …

L’dor V’ d’or is a Hebrew phrase that means from generation to generation. It highlights the responsibility of one generation to pass on the wisdom and honor the stories of their ancestors to the next generation. This process allows us to learn from the past and work towards creating a better future. They say that …

I was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1938. At the time, Hungary was a right-wing country. When the Nazis invaded Budapest, my father was conscripted into the military, and my mother, my grandmother, and I were forced to move into the ghetto where we remained until 1945. Life in the ghetto was difficult; there was …

In early May of 1980, our family began the long emigration journey to the USA, filled with many risks and unknowns. That process took us to Warsaw, Vienna, and Rome and, finally, on June 28th, we arrived in Minneapolis, Minnesota. America greeted us with bright sunshine, high blue skies, cleanliness everywhere that we had never …

My name is Musya. I was born in Riga, Latvia in 1934. I am sharing some snippets from my book, As Life Flows On. It was the summer of 1941. I had recently turned seven, and I was looking forward to the day I would go to first grade in the fall, very proud that …

My name is Solomon Volkov, and I was born in 1944 in Leninabad, now Khojent, Tajikistan. I grew up in Riga, Latvia. Riga is a city with history, belonging first to the Russian Empire and then to Germany. It is a highly cultured city. I was immersed in its culture, especially classical music. It is …

My name is Alberto Di Porto. My family originally came from Portugal, hence the name Di Porto, meaning “From Porto” in Italian. Porto is a city in Portugal. My ancestors fled Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition and eventually settled in Italy. Fast forward to WW II. The Italian government, a Fascist regime led by Benito …

I was born in Kiev (now Kyiv), Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union until 1991. World War II for the Soviet Union started on June 22, 1942, five weeks before I turned 5 years old. My father went to the front where he was killed in October 1942 at the Battle of Stalingrad. …

I was born in Romania in 1926. Before the start of the war, we had “nice” non-Jewish German neighbors. When I turned 14, we were forced out of our home and into Ukraine. My family walked from Romania to Ukraine, where we were required to perform forced labor. The Nazis killed my mother, brother, and …