Zoya Lerman's grandfather, Boris Lerman, with his friends

My paternal grandfather Boris Lerman (center), with his friends in a photo from the 1920?s. My father lost his parents when he was 13 or 14 years old. There were two sisters and five brothers in the family and my father was the youngest child. Boris Lerman, my father's father, died and my father's mother disappeared. Nobody knew what happened to her. David, born in 1902, was the oldest son. Their second son was Michael, born in 1904. Then came Semyon, born in 1906, and Jacob, born in 1908. My father Naum, born in 1910, was the youngest. I don't remember their sisters' dates of birth. I never met my father's sisters and know them only from what my father told me. One of them was called Rachil and another was Bertha. My father told me that Aunt Rachil was so beautiful that people couldn't help but stare at her in the street. On September 29, 1941 Rachil and her 4-year old daughter Zinochka (also a beauty like her mother) perished in the Babiy Yar.

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).