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NINA FINKELSTEIN
Landsberg, Germany
Winter 1946 |
"After she was
liberated by the Russians, Nina said that she was interrogated by
them because they thought that any one who had survived must have
been a collaborator. Following this, I believe that Nina went to
Moscow with a team of gymnasts.
She was an accomplished gymnast and had participated in the
Maccabiah Games in 1939 in Helsinki.
Nina had a
friend in the ghetto who had given her daughter, Judith, to a
neighbour as she was being taken away to the ghetto. After
liberation, this woman survived but was unable to find her daughter.
One day when they were walking in the market, the woman saw a
blanket that looked like the one that her baby had been wrapped in
when she gave her away.
The woman
asked the vendor where he had found the coat. Eventually she was
able to trace the coat that was made from the blanket, and she found her daughter. This is how she
found Judith, who had been given away several times because it was
very dangerous for the people keeping her. Judith was found in a
convent, and for some time after used to cross herself.
In
1945, Nina managed to escape the Russians by fleeing across Poland
disguised as a peasant woman. She understood Polish quite well, but
for obvious reasons was told not to speak. In Germany she spent time
around Munich in some of the camps in the area. She didn’t talk
about this very much, but her photos tell the story."
-Jo Ann
Goldwater |