Exiled Survivor
- Jan 27
- 1 min read
Berta Bloch-Berman, the wife of the pharmacist in Šeduva, survived the horrors of the Holocaust but was left completely alone in the world. The mass murders took her newborn son, her husband, and her relatives.
At the time, Berta's sister, her sister's husband, and their daughter lived in exile 2,000 kilometers away from Lithuania—in the Komi Republic in northern Russia. In 1941, along with many other Lithuanian citizens, the Soviets deported them there.
After the war, Berta sought out her only living relatives. Her sister, it turned out, had not survived the harsh conditions in the faraway land. Nor had her husband. When she learned her sister's daughter was left all alone in the world just like her, Berta set off for Komi. She was determined to find her niece no matter what.
Berta found her, and they decided to live together. There, in self-imposed exile, Berta met the second love of her life, Ariya Lipshitz. They got married. Released from exile, all three of them returned to their homeland.
Deportations, it turned out, led to the survival of the largest number of Jews. What a twisted irony of fate! By forced exile, Stalin wanted to destroy, not to save people.