Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Raisa Bordeski

Raisa Brodsky will be one of six survivors lighting torches at the State Ceremony opening Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem.

Raisa (Rachel) Brodsky was born in 1937 in Sharhorod, Ukraine to the Zubkovs, a traditional family of five. They spoke Yiddish at home and observed the Jewish holidays.

In early September 1941 the Germans passed control of Sharhorod to the Romanians, who established a ghetto in the town. Raisa’s father Zamvel organized underground meetings in his house, and together with his Jewish and Ukrainian resistance comrades, they smuggled food, clothes, equipment and medicine to the partisans. In 1942, Zamvel contracted typhus. One of the refugees in the ghetto, Dr. Teich, smuggled medicines he had stolen from the Romanian headquarters to the partisans and also used them to treat Jews, including Zamvel.

After the Red Army liberated Sharhorod in March 1944, Raisa studied mathematics and drafting, and she taught mathematics at the local school.

When the USSR permitted immigration to Israel in 1989, Raisa and her family realized Zamvel’s dream and made aliya. Raisa did not know any Hebrew, but she studied at an ulpan and within a year, she had passed the mathematics teacher training course and started working at an elementary school.

Raisa also started telling her story to a wider audience, and even stayed in contact with the schoolchildren who heard her testimony. She shares her memories with them and helps them with their history studies.

Raisa and Semion have 2 children, 5 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.
For more details: https://www.yadvashem.org/remembrance...