Ester Roifman

Testimony of Esther (Sapojnik) Roifman, born in Briceva, Romania, 1924, regarding her experiences in Briceva and in a village near Obodovka Well-to-do religious family with five children; her father owes a textile business; witness attends a Tarbut school and a Jewish high school; her family speaks Yiddish at home; membership in Gordonia; official displays of antisemitism during the regime of A. J. Cuza, 1938-1939. Soviet occupation, 1940; her father is on the list of capitalists; nationalization of the businesses; her father's work in a cooperative; Romanian and German re-occupation, June 1941; removal of the Jews from their homes; deportations to Ukraine; transfer to the Dniester River; life in a village near Obodovka; survival of only 70 of the 300 deportees; life in a pigsty in a kolkhoz; receives help from the local population; men are taken to forced labor; murder of her mother by gunshot; death of her sister and brothers due to typhus shortly after their arrival; witness remains with her father only; her father's labor sewing for villagers in exchange for food, until 1944; liberation by the Red Army. Return to Briceva; marriage; escape to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany with help from the JDC and UNRRA, using forged documents with the names of people who had perished; life in Germany, for three years; work in odd jobs and receives support from the JDC; aliya to Israel, 1949; birth of her son and daughter; birth of grandchildren.