Tag #114189 - Interview #78009 (Alexandra Ribush)

Unexpectedly we got into German occupation there. All adults were executed. The three of us, children, were saved by a Russian woman called Varvara Alekseyevna Tsvelenyova. I was 13 years old at the time. We lived in various apartments. Our landlady was a nice woman, but her husband and son were anti-Semites. They owned a house. Varvara Alekseyevna worked with Vera Isaacovna, the wife of dad's brother Isaac. She was evacuated from Leningrad along with the 1st Medical Institute. They were evacuated in the same train, in a heated goods' carriage. That's where they became friends. They hadn't known each other before. Varvara was very young; she was 27 years old and she wasn't married. Her brother was at the front. Varvara Alekseyevna came to Kislovodsk, which was occupied by the Germans, because of her old mother, who was in hospital. That's why she couldn't leave Kislovodsk on foot when the Germans approached the town. She was very young and didn't want to abandon her mother. When the Jews were gathered in Kislovodsk for execution, she took us to stay with her.