On the left is Nechama Baruchson; next to her is Chaim, a soldier in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, who apparently participated in the Bericha. The second man in the photo was probably also a soldier in the Jewish Brigade.
Nechama Baruchson was born in Kovno. She was a company commander of the underground movement ABZ (Covenant of Zion) in the Kovno ghetto. After the loss of her mother and the liquidation of the ghetto, Nechama was deported to the Stutthof concentration camp, from which she was eventually forced on a death march. Owing to her resourcefulness and courage, she managed to escape the march and survive until the liberation.
During the summer of 1944, even before the end of World War II, a mass movement of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe to the west and to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) began. This movement, partially organized and planned and partially spontaneous, is known as the “Bericha” (The Flight). Approximately a quarter of a million Jews participated in the Bericha.
Nechama Baruchson was one of the survivors who joined the Bericha. Nechama told her daughter Safira:
"In Graz, Austria, trucks belonging to the Brigade met us, taking us to a small house in Innsbruck, a snow-covered holiday resort high up in the Alps. We travelled in trucks accompanied by soldiers of the Brigade disguised as American soldiers, and there were false passports ready for us […]
Bericha organizers needed to operate in a completely "shady" fashion (using forged papers, new names and trucks with false license plates, surreptitiously crossing borders at night, paying off border guards, etc.) […]
We ran as fast as we could, it was mountainous – the Alps were covered in snow – and we were very afraid of being caught. […] We walked along narrow mountain paths in single file, on paths permanently covered with snow, our few possessions on our backs, our cups tied with string to our backbacks.There was a steep incline and people and their luggage slipped down it. […] Close to the Italian border itself trucks from the Bericha organization were waiting for us […]
We had arrived in Italy, in Tarvisio… Soldiers from the Brigade helped us alight from the trucks – strong Eretz Israel soldiers wearing the Star of David on their Khaki uniforms, not as a degrading emblem or as a sign of shame, but with a sense of pride and as an army identification badge. They carried us – weak and excited – on their shoulders, dried the tears from our cheeks, kissed us, gave us chocolate and sang "Hatikvah" in our honor. That is where we first heard Sabra Hebrew, real spoken Hebrew… And that was the most exciting and beautiful moment, the one that made surviving so worthwhile."
(Safira Rapoport, A Pedigreed Jew, pp. 119-120)
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