Bella Vaisman was born in 1925 in Berdychiv. Her father was born in Warsaw and worked as a chief accountant. She grew up in a relatively wealthy family. Days before the war began, she went to visit her cousin, as a result of which she was cut of from the rest of her family. She survived the war in evacuation in Uzbekistan, but her family was killed in Berdychiv. She was married to Isaak Vaisman.
Other Interviews:
"a very religious family""...and we lived well"
Sabbath Was Sabbath
The Reinsdorfs
Berdychiv
Bella (Betya) Vaisman (née Reinsdorf) was born in 1924 in Berdychiv. She was brought up in a well-to-do, intellectual family. Her father, Moyshe (Moisei), was a religious man who came to Berdychiv in 1914 as a World War I refugee from Warsaw. Although he was unable to openly practice his religion in the Soviet Union, he still refused to work on Yom Kippur. He and his wife Sonya raised three children: Bella and her sisters, Esther and Zina (Zisl). Bella attended a Russian-language school, and though she spoke Yiddish at home, she never learned to read or write in this language.
In June 1941, Bella had just completed the eighth grade with honors, and she asked for her parents’ permission to celebrate by going on a trip with her cousin to visit her maternal grandparents in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov. This cousin, Zonya, was a law student and needed to go on the trip to take his final exams in order to graduate. They left on the June 20th, two days before Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Her cousin was able to make another trip back to Berdychiv to bring his wife, child, and blind mother to Kharkov, but Bella’s immediate family was left behind. Her parents, two sisters, and paternal grandmother were murdered by the Nazis less than six months later. Zina, the youngest girl, was four years old. Bella kept a remarkable collection of Bella and her grandfather were eventually evacuated to Uzbekistan for the duration of the war and returned to Kharkov in 1947. It was then that Isaak Vaisman, Bella’s childhood neighbor, saw her name among lists of survivors and found her in the city. They were married shortly thereafter. Their first child was born in 1954. The Vaismans were last interviewed by AHEYM in 2010 in Berdychiv, the town they continue to call their home.