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 />
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