United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Tsilya Tochilnikov (nee Donskaya, 1932) fled Voznesensk with her pregnant mother when Germany invaded Ukraine in June 1941, eventually making their way to Tbilisi, Georgia. Her mother gave birth to her brother Riven-Romochka en route. They learned that Tsilya’s grandmother Reisa Livshits, aunts Dora Groisman and Rivva Litvakm, uncles Mosey, Motl, and Girsh, and all her cousins had been massacred in Vinnytsia and that her brother Boris (Borya) had been killed fighting in the war. Tsilya and Riven-Romochka were moved to children’s homes in Tbilisi and later to foster care in Baku, Azerbaijan. Tsilya left Baku for the United States following the January 1990 Baku pogrom.
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The Tsilya Tochilnikov papers are arranged as a single series.
The Tsilya Tochilnikov papers consist of personal narratives and photographs documenting Tsilya's flight from Voznesensk, Ukraine, during World War II and the loss of relatives killed in the war and in the Holocaust. The narratives describe Tsilya’s happy early life in Voznesensk, fleeing from German bombs in 1941 on a long and arduous journey, finding refuge in Tbilisi, learning her relatives had been killed, her mother’s desperate grief, her own and her brother’s removal to children’s homes, being sent to Baku with her brother, and finding a foster mother in Baku but suffering from continuous hunger. The narratives also describe violence against her mother's family during a Vinnytsia pogrom following the 1917 Russian Revolution and her decision to leave Baku for the United States following the January 1990 progrom. Photographs depict her mother, grandmother, brother, and cousins Pinya and Asenka.
Tsilya Tochilnikov papers