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In 1933, Noyema Rappaport Averbakh’s, parents Avrum Rapport and Jannet Zilberbush, were married in Chernovsty, Rumania (Chernowitz, Romania), a region that eventually became part of the Ukraine.  After receiving his Ph.D. in archeology from a university in Italy, Avrum took his young bride to Beirut, Lebanon, to work on a project.  Life in Lebanon was very difficult for Jannet.  She became pregnant and in 1934 gave birth to her first child, a girl named Judith.  It had been a difficult pregnancy and with Jannet having been sick for so long, the family decided to return to Chernovsty.  In 1936, another girl, Noyema, was born.

The family lived in a nice area in Chernovsty near a public park where the Rappaport children played.  The governess, Enisi, watched over them.  The family apartment was quite spacious.  It had three bedrooms and even a room for toys.  The apartment entrance opened into a large hall with a bedroom on the left and a living room and playroom on the right.  In the back of the apartment was a big kitchen where the family ate all their meals as there was no formal dining room. The playroom overlooked the park while the kitchen overlooked the main street. It was a busy neighborhood filled with trolley cars and little shops for buying books, clothing, and musical instruments.  The public market was not far from the house. Noyema remembers going there to buy candies and apples.

The Rappaports were a fairly traditional Jewish family and went to the synagogue every Saturday.  The synagogue was located not far from their house on Lukiana Kebilitsa and Karmoluc and Russia Roads.
Her paternal grandparents, Edel and Hannah Rappaport owned the Bakery Romania.  They had two other children, daughters Anna and Zinkutska. Their maternal grandparents, Faiga (Fanya) and Pinchus Zilberbush, lived nearby and Noyema remembers going to their home on Shabbat and the sumptuous meals they enjoyed which always included gefilte fish.  The Zilberbushes also had another daughter, Rosa, and a son, Alfred, who perished from typhus during the war.

In 1935, after returning from Lebanon, Noyema’s parents obtained jobs as high school teachers in a non-Jewish area of Chernovtsy.  In June of 1941 after the conclusion of the Ribbenkof-Molotov pact, the Ukraine became part of the USSR.  Some of their neighbors moved to Romania.  Noyema’s parents were sent to teach in the village of Worloka, which was some distance from Chernovsty. The population of this area was mostly Romanian. 

The family now had to move into Grandmother Zilberbush’s apartment because new Soviet rules allotted only 11 to 13 meters of living space to each person. With their grandmother not permitted to live alone in such a large apartment, the Rappaports soon moved their furniture into the grandmother’s apartment.  They also had a little flat in Worloka because there were times when they could not get home to Chernovtsy. Noyema liked living with her grandmother. However, the governess was no longer allowed to work for the Rappaport family.

During the Stalin years, 1937–1940, rich and influential people, including wealthy Jews, were sent to Siberia.  Middle- class Jews were allowed to remain.  Great uncle Yakov, Noyemi’s grandmother’s brother, was sent to Siberia where he died.  It became very expensive to live in the area and difficult to get basic supplies such as matches, salt, and sugar.

At this time, all people were talking about was the war and Hitler.  They got their information from the radio and heard about the German deportations of Jews. During World War I, the Germans were very kind,  but things changed during this war.  On July 8, 1941 German and Romanian troops entered the city and arrested many Jews knowing where they lived.  The synagogue on Lillian Street was burned.  Eight Jews were hung on their balconies.  This was the beginning of the Holocaust in Chernovtsy. 

Rabbi Abraham Mark, Hazzan Gulman and three other synagogue members were arrested and kept on an elevator in the Hotel Black Eagle for a whole night.  At the same time, 1500 Jewish men were caught and taken to city hall where they were imprisoned.  Later the Germans selected 100 men and took them to the River Prut. They were tortured and shot at the Chernovtsy Shooting Range.  They selected twenty Jews to dig their mass grave.

By this time Noyema’s parents lived with the family in Chernovtsy as it was too dangerous for Jews to remain in the little village. Jannet, moreover, was again pregnant. As an identifying badge Jews were forced to wear a yellow star on the left side of their chest and on the back of their clothing.  Curfews for Jews were set: they could go out only between 9 am and 5 pm.  The family was still allowed to go to synagogue, but some were fearful to gather there and so they stayed away. The Germans established their headquarters in city hall and had the Romanian soldiers patrol the streets catching Jews who had no yellow stars on their clothing.

On October 11, 1941, an announcement was made ordering all Jews to move into the ghetto established in the area near the Jewish hospital where most Jews lived. The ghetto was bounded by Sholom Aleichem and Barbus Streets.  Some 50,000 Jews moved into this area in a very short period of time.  For the Rappaport family it was not such a difficult move.  The family moved in with Jannet’s Aunt Liza.  Noyemi’s grandfather Zilberbush became sick at this time.  It was, however, hell for so many others. 

The ghetto was very small and several families had to live in each apartment.  People slept on mats on the floors.  Six people were crammed into one room. There was only one toilet and a single kitchen.  The only belongings they could take were clothes, money and gold jewelry.
Food was very hard to get in the ghetto, but it was dangerous to leave the ghetto to buy food. Fenced in and guarded by soldiers holding machine guns, some people were shot trying to get out. It was easier for kids to sneak out. Cousin Anna, who was then eight years old, was caught. They stoned her, broke her neck and threw her into the River Prut.

The ghetto soon became a very desperate place.  There were shops but very few things to buy.  It was very cold.  Some people did not have enough clothing to wear.  People were crying. After about six weeks deportations from the ghetto started.  Fifty thousand Jews from Chernovtsy with the “A” passport were deported to Transnistria, an area between the Dniester and Bug Rivers. Avrum, Jannet, Noyemi’s sister Judith, and Uncle Alfred were among them. Some people were taken to work camps.  Noyemi’s grandparents had the “B” passport and they were allowed to remain along with Aunt Liza.

 During the deportation Noyemi was terrified of the soldiers with dogs.  People were hit if they could not walk fast enough.  Some were even killed.  Avrum and Jannet tried to keep their children in the middle of the group so that they would not be targets. 

The townspeople of Chernovsty cried as they saw their Jewish neighbors herded like cattle and paraded through the streets.  Some even tried to give the Jews food and apples.  Noyemi found out later that the woman who would become her mother-in-law was in the hospital crying as she watched from the  hospital window. 
Once they arrived at the train station, they had to wait for more people coming from other streets. Then the large group had to walk thirty miles to the Boyan Station in an overnight march with no food provided.  They slept in barns. The Rappaport family had prepared by bringing their own food and were able to keep together.  The next morning they reached the Boyan Station.  only to be herded into cattle cars.  There were no benches and no air.  There was only one small window.  The Rappaports were fortunate to be able to stand near that window and get some air.  Some people became sick; others died.

The trains arrived at the Ataki Station near the Dniester River in the Ukraine. It was evening when they disembarked. They joined other Jews who had come from other places.  The soldiers divided them into groups.  Avrum gave a few of the soldiers some gold jewelry and asked that the family be kept together.  They were placed in a line of people going to Mogilev Podolski.  Avrum lost his valise in the midst of the crowded confusion. They walked to the Dniester River ferry and onward to the Mogilev Podolski Ghetto.  Soldiers indicated where they should go.  It was a two days’  walk and many people didn’t make it.

There were many Jews in this town who were friendly with the Ukrainians. The ghetto was big. The family was placed in a room with ten other people. On the second day Jannet took sick and soon gave birth to a son. Noyemi remembers waiting in the hallway and listening to the cries of childbirth. Her mother was unable to produce enough milk for the baby. He died and was buried in the cemetery. That night Noyemi was allowed to be with her mother.
A few days after the baby’s death, both Avrum and Jannet were assigned to construction work. Noyemi stayed home with Bella. The room had books and paper and that is how Noyemi learned to read and write.

At this point in the taping Noyemi spoke specifically about war time criminals. She wanted to make sure they were named as  they were responsible for the killing of thousands of Jews.
 They are: Ukrainian Commandant Bocherskey
         Ukrainian Chief of Police Sitanovskey
         Rumanian Commisar Tety
         German SS Officer Maas who killed Jews and took the gold from their teeth.

Noyemi described the ghetto as desperate: the streets were very dirty, there was sickness, starvation was common and many people were forced to eat anything they could find, even grass.  Uncle Alfred became sick with typhus.  The family tried not to be in the same room with him because they were afraid of catching his illness.  So he was put in a shed where he stayed until he died.  Hundreds of people died of starvation, typhus and dysentery.

Since Avrum and Jannet were on the construction crew building a bridge, they received a little more food.  They were able to save it and bring it home.  There was bread, sugar, corn, beets and potatoes that they were able to get from the surrounding fields. Noyemi also remembers that one time the family was able to receive some money from Grandmother Zilberbush through the help of the Red Cross.

The family remained in the Mogilev Podolsky Ghetto until March 1941 when there was a plan to kill all its inhabitants. Lucki there was not enough time to do it. Some Ukrainians found out about this plan and tried to hide the Rappaports.  Twenty-five people, the Rappaports amongst them, were hidden in a root cellar for five days.  Many became sick with coughs.  Avrum kept Noyemi close to him so her cough would not be heard.  The kind Ukrainian family who hid these Jews were George Ferents and his wife. Many Jews were not so lucky and were sent to the Pechora Death Camp in the Ukraine.

One of the boys from this group of hidden Jews went outside one day to see what was happening.  He could see no Germans. The family and others left the cellar and went back to their ghetto apartments. Suddenly, they heard shooting. German soldiers in a church were fighting with partisans in a school. The Germans were shooting everyone. Jannet happened to be cooking in the apartment when a bullet landed near the stove. The shooting lasted for three days. Then there was quiet. The Ukrainians told them they were free. It was March 15, 1944.

On March 27, 1944 the family returned to Chernovsty.  Before they left Avrum was taken to join the Russian Army. The trip back was long and hard.  The trains were cramped and crowded. When they returned to Chernovsty, they found Grandmother Zilberbush.  Life tried to resume to normalcy.  Jannet found work as an accountant.  Avrum was in the army.  The children went to Russian school #4.  There were a lot of Jewish teachers and students in the Russian schools and everything seemed fine until 1953.
 
At this time, Jewish doctors in the main hospital in Moscow were arrested because they were accused of giving the hospitalized Communist leaders the wrong medicine.  After Stalin’s death in April 1953, they were freed.  However, the Russian population questioned the release of these doctors.  Antisemitism was becoming rampant.  Jews were considered the enemy.  Many Russians wanted to kill a Jewish doctor in Red Square and send all the other Jews to Siberia.

Now that Avrum was discharged from the army, both he and Jannet found jobs as teachers.  Noyemi became sick with TB.  She was ten years old.  She was given medicine and her parents were told to take her into the country.  Since her parents were already working there, she was able to go with them.  She drank fresh milk and thrived. 
After the Stalin years, Kruschev became the Communist leader. Life became better.  People were no longer afraid to talk or tell jokes.  However, there was great deal of antisemitism.  There were strict quotas for Jews trying to enter the universities as students and as professors.  The math department at Chernovtsy University had only 50 student openings. 

Noyemi, who always excelled at math, was rejected in favor of a less qualified Ukrainian girl whose father had perished in World War II.  So Noyemi worked for the year as a librarian.  The following year she was finally accepted to attend the university.

In 1959, while on vacation, Noyemi met her husband Zigmund Averbakh.  He was working on a collective farm, Artel, in the breeding of livestock.  He asked some friends who she was.  They were introduced and the rest, as they say, is history.  They were married and had two children, a daughter and a son. 

Life was hard for the Averbakhs, but they didn’t realize just how hard until their son-in-law opened their eyes.  There was always a shortage of food, and antisemitism was hard to ignore. They applied to leave the USSR in 1984, 1985, and 1986.  However, Jews were not allowed to leave and those who applied became known as Refusniks. 

Finally in 1988, the Averbakhs were allowed to come to the United States. They settled in Rochester with their daughter and son-in-law and two grandchildren; their other son went to live in Israel with one son.

Noyema devotes some of her time speaking to students about her experiences during the Holocaust.

Biography written by Jane Rushefsky