Lipshitsene Katrina Grigorievna (1922)

Lipshitsene (Lipschitzene) (née Vilchak) Katrina Grigorievna (12 February 1922, Petrograd — later Leningrad, today St Petersburg) – worker.

Katrina Lipshitsene was born on 12 February 1922 in Petrograd to a single mother, Beila Khaimovna Rabinovich (Vilchak) (1890, St Petersburg – perished in the Stutthof concentration camp, Germany, in 1945). In 1927 the family moved to Dvinsk (today Daugavpils), where Katrina completed seven years of primary school.

In 1939 she married and moved to her husband’s hometown, Kaunas. She did not work and was supported by her husband. Together with her entire family she was imprisoned in the Kaunas Ghetto and later in the Stutthof concentration camp (1941–1945).

After liberation she returned to Kaunas, and later moved to Riga, where she remained dependent on her husband between 1945 and 1959. In Riga she worked as:

– apprentice stamper at the “Avtoelektropribor” plant (1959),

– worker and apprentice seamstress at the “Fantāzija” factory (1959–61),

– dresser at the Theatre of Musical Comedy (1961),

– linen storekeeper at the 4th Polyclinic (1961–64),

– apprentice optician at the “Medtekhnika” office (1965–66),

– cashier at “Tekstilshvejobuvtorg” (1966–70),

– buffet attendant at the “Rīga” restaurant (1970).

In her marriage to Aron-Leiser Ilio-Khaim Lipshitsas (1906, Kaunas – 1967, Riga) were born their sons Ilya Aronovich Lipshitsas (1946, Kaunas) and Alexander Aronovich Lipshits (1951, Riga).

In 1971 Katrina Lipshitsene received permission to emigrate to Israel, where since the 1930s her cousin Eliezer Akabas (1907, Kaunas) had been living.

Family:

Beila Khaimovna Rabinovich (Vilchak) (1890–1945) – mother
Nadezhda Mikhailovna Shapiro (Vilchak) (1919, Petrograd – 1963, Riga) – sister
Aron-Leiser Ilio-Khaim Lipshitsas (1906–1967) – husband
Ilya Aronovich Lipshitsas (1946) – son
Alexander Aronovich Lipshits (1951) – son
Eliezer Akabas (1907) – cousin