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Rivka Wiznitzer
Rivka Wiznitzer
Rivka was born in 1930 in Gura Humorului, a town in northeast Romania. Her mother was born in Galicia, and her father was from Romania. Her grandparents worked as tax collectors, gathering taxes from the sales in the local market. Rivka’s father was a businessman in the lumber industry. Though he wasn’t well-educated, he valued education and worked hard to ensure his children could attend school.
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Her mother, a homemaker and an exceptional baker, managed the household. Rivka had a younger brother, one and a half years her junior, and the family practiced Orthodox Judaism.
Rivka attended public school until 1940, when Jews were barred from attending due to Nazi laws. A Jewish school was established in the community, and Rivka continued her education there.
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Her brother, who had attended Cheder and public school, also transferred to the Jewish school. The family lived in a rural area with many animals, including dogs, cats, cows, and chickens, which the children helped care for. The animals provided them with food. Their house lacked running water, so they relied on a well.
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The town had a main synagogue, the Sinagoga Mare din Gura Humoroului, and several shtieblach, including one run by the Vishnitzer Rav. During their time in the ghetto, Rivka’s father hired a melamed, Rav Yankel, to tutor her brother for his bar mitzvah.
In 1940, the German occupiers ordered all residents of German origin to return to Germany.
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The Jews had generally maintained good relations with these neighbors, though anti-Semitism worsened under German occupation. On October 1, 1941, Erev Yom Tov, everything was on the stove for the holiday, and the town crier announced the Jews' expulsion, declaring that all Jews must report to the train station within two hours with a suitcase and valuables.
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The scene at the train station was chaotic, with no sanitary conditions, food, or water, and the Jews were packed into cattle cars for days.
The train arrived in Otaci (formerly Ataki) in Bessarabia, an area once home to a Jewish neighborhood on the southwestern bank of the Dniester River.
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The Jews from Gura Humorului were housed in the homes of Jews who had already been murdered, finding writing in blood on the walls, “Say Kaddish for us!” The Germans demanded all their valuables under threat of death. Rivka’s father managed to set up a small business buying and selling goods, ensuring the family always had food. The Rebbe’s son ate at their house, as many had nothing, and Rivka’s brother continued his studies for his bar mitzvah.
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The Jews were later moved to Mogilev-Podolsky, a former military barracks in Ukraine. As Jews were continuously relocated, Rivka’s father bribed the guards and found a Jewish couple with whom they could live in the ghetto. He continued his trade, while Rivka’s mother baked bread for the couple. Life in the ghetto developed a routine; Rivka spent time with her friends, and they pumped water from the well for bathing.
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However, fear was constant, and they narrowly escaped detection during searches for Jews, hiding behind a leafless bush in a moment Rivka recalls as a miracle.
In 1941, a typhus epidemic ravaged the ghetto, killing over a thousand people, including Rivka’s mother and her brother’s melamed. After her mother’s death, Rivka assumed her mother’s duties, caring for her brother and living in a perpetual state of fear.
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The family remained in Mogilev-Podolsky from October 1941 until May 6, 1944, when the Russians liberated the town. Rivka vividly remembers the German soldiers’ desperate state, cold and hungry, and how Russian forces blew up bridges over the Dniester River, sending German soldiers, wagons, and horses into the water.
Though the war was over in Mogilev, Rivka’s father understood that the Russian occupiers would not be kind.
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He fled to his sister-in-law’s home in Botosani, Romania, which had not been occupied. He sent for Rivka and her brother by paying a Russian soldier, but the authorities initially prevented their crossing. They eventually hid in potato sacks during transport, with soldiers sitting on top of them, and reunited with their father.
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The family lived near their aunt in Bucovina for six months, renting a house with large fruit orchards vacated by its owner who had fled the Russians.
In 1950, Rivka moved to Israel, settling in Haifa. A friend’s husband introduced her to a Jewish Romanian man living in Panama, and they corresponded. In 1951, Rivka moved to Panama and married him.
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The couple relocated to America in 1959, where her husband studied accounting at night while working during the day. He eventually became a CPA with the Internal Revenue Service. Rivka and her husband had three sons: two became doctors, and one became a computer engineer.
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The End
Rivka Wiznitzer interview at Miami Beach Nautilus Middle School - 2023-2024
Rivka Wiznitzer at Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy - 2023-2024
Miami Beach Nautilus Middle School
