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Sources & Methodology

This site is built entirely from one primary source: the testimony of Masha Klaynberg, recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation. No facts have been invented. Where details are uncertain, they are labeled.

Primary Source

Masha Klaynberg Testimony

Video testimony recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation on January 23, 1997, in Hollywood, Florida. Interviewer: Elisa Arden. 4 tapes.

Klaynberg, Masha. Interview 25123. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1997.

Selected Testimony Excerpts

Direct quotations from the testimony, transcribed from the recorded interview.

On escaping the ghetto liquidation
“I survived because my face was — I didn’t look like a Jewish girl. And the mother put me in with the Russian people.”
On wandering through the countryside
“I wandered from one village to another village. I wandered, wandered. Sometimes I come to a house and say, “I am a refugee.””
On concealing her identity during forced labor
“Nobody I told, nobody I told about Jewish.”
On revealing the truth to the Soviet captain
“And I told him: “Everything I told you is wrong. It is not right. I am a Jewish girl.””
On reclaiming her identity after the war
“I came to my city, Bobruisk, and I took my registration in the archive, and I am Jewish.”

How Locations Are Classified

The map distinguishes between three levels of certainty. Each location and route segment is classified as documented, approximate, or inferred.

Documented

Locations and events named directly in the testimony or confirmed through historical records.

  • ·Bobruisk
  • ·Antonovka
  • ·Priluki
  • ·Stuttgart
  • ·Falkenburg
  • ·Ordensburg Krössinsee
  • ·Italy
  • ·United States

Map treatment: Solid route lines and precise location markers.

Approximate

Locations described in general terms in the testimony. The exact position is estimated from context.

  • ·Countryside near Bobruisk
  • ·Village wandering route across Belarus
  • ·Mass execution site path near Kamenka/Yalovica
  • ·Settlement near Falkenburg during the Soviet advance
  • ·Soviet holding/interrogation site

Map treatment: Dotted route lines and soft circle markers indicating approximate position.

Inferred

Details not stated in the testimony but reasoned from historical context. These are always labeled.

  • ·Precise route between named locations
  • ·Exact labor duties at Krössinsee
  • ·Specific building where Italian soldiers were held
  • ·Exact road used during evacuation

Map treatment: Not shown on the map. Noted in text with uncertainty indicators.

Photographs

Family photographs from before, during, and after emigration. No photographs survive from before the war or from the war years.

Masha and her son Joseph outdoors among birch trees.
Masha and her son Joseph.
Masha portrait in winter, fur-collared coat, snowy yard with wooden fence.
Masha in Bobruisk, winter.
Two couples outdoors in summer, straw hats. Masha and Alexander with friends.
With friends, summer.
Masha, Alexander, and young son swimming at a resort. Stamp reads Chenki 1960.
On vacation.
Masha standing alone at the seashore in a dark suit.
At the shore.
Masha standing outdoors in a summer dress.
Masha, summer.
Large family and community group photo outside a house, roughly twenty people.
Family and friends.
Masha at work behind a counter with coworkers. Sign reads ТКАНИ (Fabrics).
At work in Bobruisk.
Masha and Alexander with another couple in front of a wooden house with carved window frames.
With friends, Bobruisk.
Family portrait: Masha, Alexander, and both sons in winter coats.
The family: Masha, Alexander, Lev, and Joseph.
Studio family portrait: Masha, Alexander, and both sons as young men.
Family portrait.
Masha and Alexander in a Soviet city plaza with a modernist hotel building behind them.
Return visit to the Soviet Union.
Masha, Alexander, and a younger man standing on a Florida street with palm trees.
In Florida.
Masha and Alexander on a palm-lined street in Florida.
Hollywood, Florida.
Masha in Times Square wearing a green dress. Criterion Center visible.
Times Square, New York.
Masha in Times Square holding red gladioli, smiling broadly.
Times Square, New York.
Family wedding photo. Bride and groom with Masha in green and Alexander in tan suit.
A family wedding.
Masha raising a toast at a wedding celebration, large table with flowers.
Celebration.
Masha with her grandson Eddie.
Masha and Eddie.
Masha with her grandson Danny.
Masha and Danny.
Masha and Alexander seated with their grandson Robert between them.
Masha, Alexander, and Robert.
Alexander, family members, and Masha together with a newborn.
The next generation.
Alexander at a synagogue bimah with a man in a tallit. Star of David on the lectern.
At synagogue.