Born:
Kiev, Soviet Union
September 14, 1924
Died: February 20, 2015
Nikolay Vaserman was the second of four children born into a Jewish family in Kiev, the capital of what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Nikolay’s mother stayed home to take care of the children while his father worked as a leather buyer for a shoe factory. Vaserman grew up speaking Yiddish and recalled how his extended family gathered together to celebrate Passover and other Jewish holidays.
After the German army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Nikolay fled with his family to northern Kazakhstan. In late September, any Jews still living in Kiev—including Vaserman’s aunt and nephew—were murdered at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of the city. Over the course of a week, approximately 100,000 people were shot in one of the worst instances of mass murder during World War II.
Meanwhile, Nikolay and his family struggled to survive as farm laborers in Kazakhstan. With a promise of extra rations, Vaserman joined the Soviet Army in August 1942. His brigade marched west into the Polish cities of Białystok and Warsaw and had arrived in Stettin, Germany by the time the war ended in Europe in May 1945.
In 1947, Nikolay returned to Kiev, where he found that another family was living in his childhood home. Vaserman married his wife Klara in 1949 and their daughter Mila was born a few years later in 1951. The family immigrated to the United States in 1979.
Parents:
Leo Vaserman, survived
Fania Barenvaltz Vaserman, survived
Siblings:
Seema, survived
Anya, survived
Roma, survived