Tag #152904 - Interview #77951 (Esiah Kleiman)

Mariam came to see us in July 1941 and told us that we had to leave as soon as possible. She suggested that she would take Beila and that we should all meet in Odessa where she had acquaintances. The official information claimed that the situation was stable and that the Soviet troops were advancing to the West. We believed it. Mariam and my sister left. They got to Rostov, where Mariam got a job in a school and Beila went to the 2nd grade. We heard about their fate after the war from survivors. They told us that Mariam wanted to leave when the Germans approached Rostov in 1942, but the school management told her that she had no right to leave the school until the official evacuation was announced. The management left, and she stayed behind. She and my sister were captured by the Germans. That's all we know. They must have been shot along with many other Jews in Rostov.