The Ukrainian Jewish Family Album

Babyn Yar
Frida Palanker
Photo taken in: Korostyshiv, Zhytomyr
oblast, Ukraine, 1911
Interviewer: Unknown
My father Nusim Veprinsky. During the
war he was in the reserves, so when
my mother and siblings evacuated, he
stayed. When I returned to in 1945, my
neighbors told me that a German man
living in our house reported my father
to the Germans when they occupied
the city. On September 29 they came
to take him away and killed him at
Babyn Yar.
Klara Dovgalevskaya
Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1936
Interviewer: Vladimir Zaidenberg
A picture of my sister, Sonya
Dovgalevskaya, taken from the yearbook
of the Medical Institute in Kyiv. She was
mobilized into the army as a doctor
before the war and participated in the
defense of Kyiv. When the Germans
occupied the city, one of her former
friends reported her to the Germans.
When we returned from occupation our
neighbors told us that Sonya was taken to
Babyn Yar and shot.
Larisa Khusid
Photo taken in: Odessa, 1922
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
My uncle, Idel Khusid, was born in 1885. He
had a degree in economics and lived in Kyiv
with his wife Valentina, who was German.
Valentina convinced him that Germans were
a civilized people who would not harm the
Jews, so he did not go into evacuation. Our
relatives told us that Valentina handed him
over to the police and that they saw him
among the Jews being taken through the
streets to Babyn Yar on 29 September 1941.
Deborah Averbukh
Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1939
Interviewer: Ella Orlikova
My mother, Rakhil Averbukh.
My parents didn’t evacuate
because my father thought the
Germans were civilized people.
My mother was a very strong
person. I don’t remember her
crying when my brother Israel
left for the front or when I
said goodbye before going
into evacuation. In 1944 I got
a postcard from a neighbor in
Kyiv saying that my parents had
been shot in 1941 at Babyn Yar.
Evadiy Rubalskiy
Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1923
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
My sister, Shiva Rubalskaya, when
she was two years old. In 1941 I
was serving at the front while my
grandparents, mother, and sister
stayed in Kyiv. My grandfather
thought the Germans would
persecute communists but not
Jews. They stayed and followed
the commandant’s order to walk to
Babyn Yar on 29 September 1941.
Shiva had finished her first year at
the Food Industry College when the
war began.
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