Potash Frida Khaimovna (1921)

Potash (Potasch) (née Blaer) Frida (Frieda) Khaimovna (18 September 1921, Kraslava) — seamstress.

Frida Potash was born into the family of a painter, Khaim Blaer (1890). After completing five grades of primary school, she began learning the tailoring trade at the age of fourteen. During the war, she was evacuated to the collective farm “Dubrovo” and later moved to Namangan in the Uzbek SSR. Her father and sister, Tsilya Rosenberg (née Blaer) (1909), also spent the war years in evacuation there.

Her mother, Khava Blaer (1901–1941), who remained in Latvia, and her brothers Mendel Blaer (1925–1941), Iosif Blaer (1927–1941), and Motl Blaer (1939–1941), were murdered by the German occupiers in 1941. Her brother Genech Blaer (b. 1923) was killed at the front during the war.

In 1945, Frida Potash returned to Riga together with her father. In 1946, she married Girsh Potash (1909). Their son Oleg was born in 1947 and their daughter Liya in 1953. Due to her son’s illness (poliomyelitis, Category II disability), she was forced to leave her job in the 1940s and did not work until 1957; she later worked as a seamstress for six years. In 1963, she underwent a serious operation and did not return to work thereafter for health reasons.

Together with her husband and family, Frida Potash petitioned in the 1960s for permission to emigrate to Israel to join her husband’s relatives.

Family:

Girsh Potash (1909) — husband
Oleg Potash (1947) — son
Liya Potash (1953) — daughter
Tsilya Rosenberg (née Blaer) (1909) — sister
Khaim Blaer (1890) — father
Khava Blaer (1901–1941) — mother
Mendel Blaer (1925–1941) — brother
Iosif Blaer (1927–1941) — brother
Motl Blaer (1939–1941) — brother
Genech Blaer (b. 1923) — brother