Rivka yosselevska biography

Soviet Jewish inmate of Zagorodski Ghetto in Poland, 1941-1942; survived mass shooting, 1942; hiding in forest near Pinsk, Poland, 1942-1944.
Rivka lived 35 miles east of Warsaw in the small predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn.
On the evening of 14 August 1942, the SS surrounded the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski, near Pinsk, in Belarus, which was home to five hundred Jewish.

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'Memories of the Eichmann Trial' with panel discussion

Description:

Introduced by Yael Perlov, daughter of David Perlov, and followed by a panel discussion featuring Joel Snyder (UChicago), Leora Auslander (UChicago), Na'ama Rokem (UChicago), and Noa Steimatsky (UC-Berkeley). Screening courtesy of The Yad Vashem Visual Center and KAN 11 – IBC. David Perlov lays layer upon layer of memory in his film Memories of the Eichmann Trial, a unique historic and cinematic document, composed of interviews conducted by Perlov in his Tel Aviv apartment seventeen years after the Eichmann trial. Those interviewed are Israeli Holocaust survivors and members of their generation, children of survivors and young “Sabras”. They reflect upon how the Eichmann trial transformed Israeli perceptions of the Holocaust and the survivors and the way it affected them and their families. Among those interviewed in the film are: Raffi Eitan, who took part in Eichmann's capture in Argentina, Rivka Yosselevska, who gave testimony at the trial - a survivor of the killing pits of the

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Rivka Yosselevska

On the evening of 14 August 1942, the SS surrounded the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski, near Pinsk, in Belarus, which was home to five hundred Jewish families. The following harrowing account by Rivka Yosselevska of the mass killing of her family and other Jews by members of the Einsatzgruppen:

One could not leave the line, but I wished to see � what are they doing on the hillock? I turned my head and saw that some three or four rows were already killed � on the ground. There were some twelve people amongst the dead. I also want to mention that my child said while we were lined up in the ghetto, she said, �Mother, why did you make me wear the Shabbat dress; we are being taken to be shot;� and when we stood near the dug-out, near the grave, she said, �Mother, why are we waiting, let us run!�

Some of the young people tried to run, but they were caught immediately, and they were shot right there. It was difficult to hold on to the children. We took all children, not ours, and we carried � we were anxious to get it all over � the suffering of the children w

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August 14: Surviving the Einsatzgruppen

Rivka Yosselevska was one of a handful of Jews to survive a Nazi massacre of 500 that began when the Einsatzgruppen surrounded the ghetto of Zagrodski, near Pinsk in Belarus, on this date in 1942. The next day, the Jews were herded to a pit and shot. Yosselevska was wounded in the head but lived, and spent three nights lying among bodies in the pit until a farmer rescued her, hid her, fed her, and later helped her join a group of Jews hiding in the forest, where she survived until the arrival of the Soviet army in the summer of 1944. Yosselevska testified about her horrors at the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. She lost a daughter, as well as her mother, father, sister, and other relatives in the slaughter.

“I also want to mention what my child said while we were lined up in the ghetto, she said, ‘Mother, why did you make me wear the Shabbat dress; we are being taken to be shot.’ And when we stood near the dug-out, near the grave, she said, ‘Mother, why are we waiting, let us run!’ Some of the young people tried to run, but they were ca