Brukhe Feldman was born in 1938 or 1939 in Bershad. Her father died fighting in the war when she was three years old, and she was brought up by her mother. She spent much of her life working in a furniture factory.
Other Interviews:
Postwar Religious PracticeA Gravestone for My Mother
Kheskele - the Clarinetist
Burial Customs
The Shiva
A Jew Must Eat Matzo
Hunger of 1946
Bershad, Ukraine
The postwar years were difficult years of rebuilding for Jews and non-Jews alike. The year 1946–1947 was the most dire—just as the long process of rebuilding got underway, the region was plagued with a devastating harvest that combined with counter-productive government procurement demands to create an all-out famine. Brukhe Feldman returned to Bershad after the war, and remembered the famine most of all, as her family was forced to seek sustenance in a soup kitchen.