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Born in Shpikov, in the former Soviet Union (now Ukraine), in 1938, Zinaida grew up with her parents and her two sisters, Liza and Maria. The young family was separated during the outbreak of the war between Germany and the USSR, when Zinaida’s father was conscripted to front-line military service. In the fall of 1941, the Jews of Shpikov were deported to a concentration camp in Pechora. The family escaped from the camp and fled to the nearby village of Stoiany, Zinaida’s mother’s birthplace. They were hidden by the local non-Jews until 1943, when the family was betrayed by neighbors and deported to the Tyvrov ghetto. In 1944, Zinaida’s mother was arrested while searching for food outside the ghetto and deported to a prison in Kotovsk, Bessarabia. Separated from their mother, the three sisters were left alone in the ghetto.  |
Maria, the youngest, died of starvation; Zinaida and Liza survived. The two girls were reunited with their mother shortly before the liberation of Tyvrov, in 1944.
"When they were marching us, my mom had my one-year-old sister in her arms. I was holding on to her skirt and kept falling over… And the dust from the country road got stuck in my nose and in my throat. I felt like I was choking…"
Z. Klimanovskaia |
