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My closest friend Bertha Geiman was a Jew. I remember our class tutor reprimanding Bertha: ‘You and Fichgendler are friends. Why don’t you study as well as she does?’ A tragedy happened in Bertha’s family. Her older brother, a grammar school student, fell on the skating rink and hit his head. He must have had a concussion, but he didn’t pay attention to it. That same evening he went to a party where he felt ill and died. Bertha’s mother was grieving a lot after her 15-year-old son. She went to the cemetery almost every day. When the war began and there was the issue of evacuation, she said, ‘I shall not leave my son’s grave, I shall stay here.’ When I returned from the evacuation in 1944 I ran to Bertha’s house in the upper town. Their neighbors told me that Bertha and her mother were shot in 1941, at the beginning of occupation, during the mass action.
Location
Kishinev
Moldova
Interview
Bella Chanina