Perhaps given name Vasily;                                             probably born around 1920; not Jewish;                     

  from the Grodno area

GALA'S STORY:

Before September 1939 Grodno was a  town in Poland with around 18600 Jewish citizens.

Gala's parents most likely met in Grodno during the years 1937 -  1941.  They may have married in Grodno during this period, though so far we don't know if this is what happened

Rachel Szapira / Szapiro was Jewish and her husband / boyfriend was not. 
Gala was told her father came from a farm in the vicinity of Grodno.

From September 1939  to June 1941 Grodno was under Soviet occupation.

In the end of June 1941 the Germans occupied Grodno .
(Vague possibility: Gala's father might have been serving in the Red Army in Grodno in 1941. This might have enabled him to take Rachel with him when the Red Army retreated in the end of June 1941.)

FROM GRODNO TO ROVNO
Gala's parents seemed to have reached the area of Rovno in the summer of 1941.

They may have joined one of the partisan groups  around Rovno.

GALA
Around December 1941 Rachel got pregnant with Gala.
Gala was born September 15^th 1942 in Rovno.

If her mother lived with the partisans it  is most likely that Gala has no official birth certificate.
Even if her mother lived under an assumed identity, it is not likely she would have reported the birth of her daughter to the German authorities.

DEATH OF FATHER
According to what Gala was told, her father was murdered by Ukrainians.

According to the Koordynacja index card for Gala, her father fell as a partisan.

According to a file located lately, her father was murdered by "Ukrainian Nazis".

It is not known when this happened.

IN ALATYR IN CHUVASHIA

It seems that after Gala was born in Rovno in September 1942, she and her mother Rachel went further east in the USSR and ended up in the town of Alatyr in the Chuveshia republic. They were in Alatyr at least from April/May 1943. The names Raisa and Galina were probably the names they were known under during this period.

Did they stay in Alatyr till the spring of 1946?


REPATRIATION TO POLAND IN 1946
In  the spring of 1946 Rachel took her little daughter and returned to Poland under the Repatriacja program that allowed Polish citizens in the USSR to go back to Poland.  With the new borders, Grodno was no longer in Poland, but in Belarus, so Rachel traveled to Lodz

RACHEL'S FAMILY IN GRODNO
We do not know when Rachel found out that her parents and younger siblings had been murdered in Holocaust, but perhaps it was during her short stay in Lodz.
In the Holocaust Rachel lost

her mother Jente Szapira / Szapiro nee Saitlis born ca 1895

her sister Fania Szapira / Szapiro born ca 1923

her sister Scheine Szapira / Szapiro born ca 1926

her brother Hersch Zvi Szapira / Szapiro born ca 1930

and her brother Jona  Szapira / Szapiro born ca 1933

Rachel knew that her older sister Sonia Szapira / Szapiro had made Aliyah in 1938, so this may have affected her decision to go to Eretz Israel.

KOORDYNACJA
In Lodz Rachel and Gala joined a children's home run by the Koordynacja organization – a Zionist umbrella organization that wanted to bring young surviving Jewish children to a new life in Eretz Israel.

During her short stay in Lodz Gala was registered with the Hebrew given name Zippora, though this name is not remembered by Gala herself, and was never used later.
With the Koordynacja, Rachel and Gala in the end of June 1946 went to Eschwege ( Schwebda Castle)  in Germany and then later, in October 1946, to Dornstadt near Ulm in Germany. Here Rachel had to leave Gala with the other children in Dornstadt, and she herself lived in nearby Ulm.

TRYING TO REACH ERETZ ISRAEL
In  1947 Rachel and Gala  boarded an illegal immigrant ship in France. This ship was probably SS Theodor Herzl that was caught by the British and the passengers interned in Cyprus.
Gala does not know how long she and her mother stayed in Cyprus.
In 1948 they finally reached Israel - Gala in April 1948 and her mother in May 1948.

GALA'S MOTHER RACHEL SZAPIRO DIED IN 1953.
Sadly Rachel Szapiro died in 1953, only 31 years old.

GALA'S MAIN DREAMS
1.To find the name of her father.
2.To find a photo of her father
3.To locate her relatives on her father's side of the family
4.To find her own birth certificate - which seems unlikely.
5.To find her parents' marriage certificate - if they married, and if they married in Grodno. 
6.To find more photos of her mother.
7.To find her name on the passenger list of the illegal immigrant ship Theodor Herzl to verify that she did indeed come on this ship with her mother.  

8. To find the name of the camp in Cyprus where she and her mother stayed.

RESEARCH JOURNAL JUNE 2005

LETTER TO GRODNO ARCHIVES

A letter has been sent to the archives in Grodno asking how much a copy of the census list for Grodno for the year 1935  will cost. Here we hope to get the exact birth dates for Rachel Szapira's family.

PARTISAN ORGANIZATIONS IN THE ROVNO AREA

Who will be able to supply us with names of partisans in the Rovno area?

We must consider both Jewish and non Jewish groups as Gala's father was not Jewish.

Will there be a list of partisans who fell in action?

Will there be a list of women and children living with the partisans?

RESEARCH JOURNAL JULY 2005

In the new catalogue for books published by Yad Vashem, there is also one about  Grodno  written by Tikva Petel-Cnaani. This book , in Hebrew, may teach us more about the life in Grodno before the war broke out in 1939, the conditions in Grodno under the Soviet rule 1939 - 1941 and the brutal reality of the German occupation from 1941 onwards. If you read this book, please  think about Rachel Szapiro and her non Jewish boyfriend/husband - do you find information that can help us?

Temporary orphanage in Germany

The photos of Gala and her mother were taken in Germany while a group of Koordynacja children lived in a temporary but rather unusual orphanage - a castle that today serves as Hotel Wolfratshausen in Schwebda.  
The following old postcard can be found on Beth Lochamei Haghettaot's website http://www.gfh.org.il