Helena Esterkesová, née Rivcová

She was born in 1926 in Ledochovce, Volhynia region, in a Jewish family. When Volhynia was occupied by the Soviet Army in 1939, her family was selected for a transport to Siberia. The transport did not take place since the Germans came. First they stripped the Rivc family of all their property and then sent them to the ghetto in Ostroh. From there she was sent to forced labour in the garden of Kreislanwirt Fritz Vogel and then to Peremilovka. It was there where her parents fled to join her due to Nazi murdering of the Jews. Eventually she opted for another escape and hiding. In their home village of Ledochovce, most people chased them away and refused to help. Eventually here parents were reported and shot. The Nazis murdered also her sister Pavla and brother Michael. Helena fled and at 15 she hid, in heavy frost and with scarce clothes, in a forest. Eventually she ended up with the Polish family of Lipskys, the only ones who did not refuse to help. For five months she hid in a dark room under straw. Then she hid for some time with some relatives of the Lipsky’s family before joining the Pole Bišk at Juláni. It was where she worked as a connection with Polish partisans. At the end of the war she witnessed bombing of Lutsk and Rivne. She contracted typhus fever and when in hospital, she was nearly killed by a German bomb. In September 1945 she married Adam Esterkes, who, like her, lost all of his family and shortly after re-emigrated to Czechoslovakia. At present (2010) she lives in Nový Jičín.

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