Zoya Lerman's cousin Boris Lerman

My cousin, Boris Lerman, the son of Bertha Lerman, my father's sister. He escaped from the Babiy Yar. This photo was taken in Kiev in 1950. . Aunt Bertha was also killed there, but her son Boris, a teenaged boy, escaped execution. When Germans shot his family he rolled down the slopes of the ravine. They kept shooting but miraculously the bullets didn't hit him. Later, he crawled out of this pit clutching at some roots and vegetation. Then he got out of Babiy Yar and left Kiev. In the 1950's my mother and father corresponded with him. He lived in Kuibyshev then. Once he even sent us a picture of himself and his two children. But then somehow our families lost touch with each other.