Day 116. Czech Republic, Prague
A woman with a big umbrella My great-grandfather's cousin Rachel Rappoport (Rolya, as she was called in the family) was sent to the Minsk ghetto in July 1941, shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. What followed were two gruesome years of unspeakable suffering. Every day Rachel witnessed the brutal extermination of her friends, relatives and neighbors. Her aunt (my great-great-grandmother) died in 1943. “The second torment was hunger. I probably would have died of it if it weren’t for my friend Nyura. She herself was always famishing, but not a day went by without her bringing me a bowl of watered-down potato pottage. Sometimes she even got one or two boiled potatoes — an indescribable luxury”, — Rachel wrote in her book. Fearing epidemic outbreaks and infections, the nazis did not rush to execute doctors in the ghetto. Since Rolya worked as a psychiatrist before the war, she was kept alive until the last moment. Over time more and more people were killed in the ghetto e...