Nesse Galperin
Born: March 28, 1928
Siauliai, Lithuania
Nesse was born to an observant Jewish family in Siauliai, known in Yiddish as Shavl. Her parents owned a store that sold dairy products. The city was home to a vibrant Jewish community of almost 10,000 people. It had over a dozen synagogues and was renowned for its impressive cultural and social organizations.
1933–39: Nesse's family was very religious and observed all the Jewish laws. She attended Hebrew school and was raised in a loving household, where the values of community and caring always were stressed. After the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, her family heard from relatives in Lodz that Jews there were being treated horribly. They could not believe it; how could your neighbors denounce you and not stand up to help you?
1940–44: On June 26, 1941, the Germans occupied Nesse's city, just four days after the invasion of the USSR. In the weeks that followed, SS killing units and Lithuanian collaborators shot about 1,000 Jews in the nearby Kuziai forest. In August, Nesse and her family were forced to move into a ghetto, where they lived in constant hunger and fear. There she witnessed many "selections," during which men, women, and children were taken to their deaths. Her father was among them. In 1944 as the Soviet army approached, the remaining Jews were deported to the Stutthof concentration camp. There she was given the number 54015.
From Stutthof, Nesse was transported to several camps, and was sent on a death march in January 1945. In the freezing cold winter weather and with little food, many of the prisoners died. On March 10, 1945, she was liberated by Soviet troops. In 1950 after spending five years in the displaced persons camp in Feldafing, Germany, Nesse immigrated to the United States.