Sara Gvinter was born in 1930 in Bershad. She is a niece of the violinist David Oistrakh. Her father, who died when she was young, was a carpenter, and her mother was a cook. During the Second World War, she was imprisoned in the Bershad ghetto and the Pechera con- centration camp. She was shot by the Germans during a mass shooting outside Pechera, but survived and pulled herself out of a mass grave. She worked for the partisans briefly in the Bershad region. She returned to Bershad after the war, married, and worked as a seamstress.
Other Interviews:
Let It Be Enough!The Synagogue Cellar
Survival
Bershad, Ukraine
Sara Gvinter remembers in this clip one time in 1943 when a German punitive brigade crossed over in black trucks from the other side of the Bug, and massacred a group of Jews. She was among those shot and left for dead in a mass grave. She specifically describes the rounding up and massacring of Nazi camp prisoners, as well as her miraculous survival.
Sara was only ten years old when she witnessed a horrendous scene of mutilation, and thus provides a graphic childlike description. Sara has deep-seated empathy with a tortured boy - Max - who stays ever-present in her memory. Here is a song she remembers Max's father would sing before he was murdered in the Pechera concentration camp. The pain caused by those Nazi atrocities is written all over Sara's face.
Sara's insights have a disturbing effect on the viewer. The horrors of Nazi occupation are mostly unimaginable to post-World War II generations. Sara's account nevertheless takes us a step closer to understanding the gruesome acts committed by Nazis and their collaborators.