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This is a document confirming that I was a prisoner in the Minsk ghetto from July 1941 until September 1943. I received it in 1994.

On 22nd June 1941 the Great Patriotic War broke out. On 28th June the Germans marched through the city without a single shot. On 25th July we were driven into the ghetto. They sealed the territory off with wire. At that time we had nothing – everything was burned with the house. There we settled together with the family of mum’s friend.

On 31st August 1941 my father wasn’t back by the evening. It turned out there was a raid by the Gestapo. The Germans cordoned some district off and started to arrest people. As we learnt later, those arrested were driven into the prison where they were shot.

The three of us remained with my mother: We suffered from deprivation and hunger. On 2nd March 1942, another pogrom took place. The massacre lasted for three or four days. We were hiding in a concealed space separated from the next room only by a plywood wall. Each word in the next room was audible. In the concealed space 12 or even 15 of us huddled together. When the massacre was over, we were discovered there. But luckily the mobile gas chambers and the policemen who guarded the Jews were already gone, so we were simply kicked out.

Nearly all the people in the ghetto were annihilated.

More Photos from Rita Kazhdan

Wedding invitation of Rita Kazhdan’s parents, Rozalia and Abram Fridman
      Rita Kazhdan on her third birthday
          Rita Kazhdan’s worker’s ID card from World War II
          • with audio description
            Rita Kazhdan’s parents, Rozalia and Abram Fridman
                The family of Rita Kazhdan’s father, Abram Fridman
                    Rita Kazhdan and her brother, Georgy Fridman
                        Rita Kazhdan near her house in Leningrad