Fischel Zimmer

My name is Fischel Zimmer. I had eight siblings in my family. I had a large family, including twenty-three cousins. One of my brother’s names was Joseph. Joseph emigrated to Newark before World War II.

Before World War II, I lived with my daughter Mina in Zboriv, a small town in Galicia, which is now part of the Ukraine. Most of my town’s residents were Jewish. Many of the young people in my town were active in Zionist youth groups. My daughter Mina belonged to one of the Zionist youth groups, which prepared her to emigrate to Israel around 1932. I mailed Mina letters while she was living in Israel from 1932-1941.

In 1941 my hometown of Zbroriv was occupied by the Germans on July 4, 1941. In 1941, Zboriv was the site of a massacre conducted by the Germans of the Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen were the SS paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass killings, primarily by shooting during World War II.

Sadly, I did not survive the war.