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The Ukrainian Jewish Family Album

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Babyn Yar<br />

Frieda Rudometova Lubov Ratmanskaya Zhenia Kriss<br />

Photo taken in: Berdychiv, 1916<br />

Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya<br />

My mother Revekka Winner. I carried<br />

this photo of her with me in evacuation.<br />

I evacuated Kyiv along with the other<br />

employees of the shipyard. I didn’t go to<br />

see my mother—I could not take her with<br />

me and I didn’t have time to say goodbye.<br />

We thought we would be back in two<br />

months. When I returned, neighbors told<br />

me my mother had been taken to Babyn<br />

Yar.<br />

Photo taken in: Yelets, Lipetsk oblast,<br />

Russia, 1906<br />

Interviewer: Yulia Smelianskaya<br />

A wedding portrait of my parents, Isay<br />

Ratmansky and Sofia Ratmanskaya. My<br />

mother died in evacuation in Tashkent,<br />

but my father stayed in Kyiv. I wrote him<br />

from Moscow, telling him to leave Kyiv,<br />

but he didn’t want to. He remembered<br />

the behavior of the Germans during<br />

World War I, so he stayed. He was killed<br />

at Babyn Yar in 1941.<br />

Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1938<br />

Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya<br />

My cousin Anatoliy Yufa. He was blind in one<br />

eye and therefore unfit for the army, but<br />

he participated in the defense of Kyiv with<br />

a group of volunteers from the university.<br />

Almost all of them perished. Anatoliy<br />

survived and returned to the city, where he<br />

hid in the attic of one of his schoolmates.<br />

However, he was reported to the Germans<br />

and taken to Babyn Yar, where he was killed.<br />

Efim Kadanskiy<br />

Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1939<br />

Interviewer: Unknown<br />

My great-aunt, Olia<br />

Shkurovich, the daughter of<br />

my grandmother’s sister Leya.<br />

<strong>The</strong>y were a religious family, and<br />

Olia was one of eight children.<br />

Olia was deaf and mute. When<br />

the rest of her family went into<br />

evacuation during the war, Olia<br />

refused to go. She stayed in Kyiv<br />

and was murdered at Babyn Yar.<br />

Maya Pivovar<br />

Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1930s<br />

Interviewer: Oksana Kuntsevskaya<br />

My grandfather, Boruch-<br />

Benicion Freidman. My mother<br />

tried to convince him and my<br />

grandmother to evacuate with us,<br />

but they didn’t want to leave. My<br />

grandfather was ill and said he<br />

would rather stay and die in his<br />

bed than die on the way. When<br />

we returned in 1944 our neighbors<br />

told us that my grandparents had<br />

been killed at Babyn Yar.<br />

27

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