Before leaving their home in Poland, Vera’s parents had exchanged their possessions for gold that they sewed into the linings of their clothes. Chaim even managed to load a cart with a sewing machine up onto the train. The gold and the possessions they managed to take with enabled them to make a living and even open a store in the town. For two years they were able to live this way.
In 1942 Chaim joined Anders’ Army. Vera stayed with her mother and aunt Luba. Towards the end of the year the three managed to make their way west following Anders’ Army: from Siberia to Kazahkstan, from there to Uzbekistan and in the beginning of 1943 they reached Tehran.
From Tehran, Vera and her mother, Regina, traveled with a group of children to Karachi, India where Vera received her doll “Lala” (doll in Polish) as a gift from an Indian soldier.
On February 18th 1943, Vera and Regina arrived in Eretz Israel. Chaim, who was stationed in Basra, Iraq with Anders’ Army, got word that his wife and daughter had arrived in Eretz Israel, and decided to desert the army and follow them.
Vera’s doll “Lala” received the name “Ilana” in Israel, and was kept faithfully by her through the years until she donated the doll to Yad Vashem for safekeeping.
In Yad Vashem's Hall of Names there're Pages of Testimony submitted in memory of Vera’s grandmother, Rela Lifschitz, Vera’s uncles, Chana Lifschitz, Dora and Ernst Better, Vera's grandparents Toni and Markus Kisler.
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection,
Gift of Vera Brand-Lifschitz, Haifa, Israel
