Kestenberg Archive

RG was born in 1937 in Vilna. The city was part of Lithuania, then Russia and then occuped by the Germans. Her mother was a nurse; her father was a textile merchant and the Russians confiscated his business and their apartment. RG and her family were moved to the Vilna Ghetto. Her father died from a cardiac condition. RG later contracted scarlet fever and had to live in a bombed out synagogue till she recovered. After her father died, she and her mother were forced to live in one room with three other families. When the situation in the ghetto deteriorated, her mother sent her to live with two different peasants families outside of the ghetto. She was told by her mother not to tell anyone that she was Jewish and she lived like a Christian with the peasants. Eventually the town was liberated by the Russians. After the Holocaust RG was reunited with her mother. They traveled to Germany and stayed in several displaced persons camps. She later immigrated to the United States and continued her education, married, had a family and reconnected with her Jewish identity.