Roman Barskiy with his mother Bertha Kazakova

My mother Bertha Kazakova holding me at our home in Kiev in 1936.

Ethnicity didn't matter in those days. My parents were young and progressive and didn't celebrate any Jewish holidays that were considered to be vestiges of the past. My father and mother could exchange a couple of words in Yiddish, just because they came up at some point. This was the period of the Soviet power when ethnicity was no more important than the color of hair. My father was not a member of the Communist Party, but like the majority of people he believed that everything in our country was being done as it should have been.

The Centropa Collection at USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC". 

Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).