Geller Lev Ruvinovich (22 December 1914, Daugavpils) – labourer.
During the First World War, the HGeller family was evacuated to Orenburg. After returning to Latvia, they settled in Liepāja. Lev Geller completed six years of primary school and, between 1928 and 1930, worked as an apprentice at Lichtenberg’s timber yard in Liepāja. From 1930 to 1933, he was employed as a procurement worker in a local shoe workshop, and from 1933 to 1936, worked as a salesman at the cooperative Centība. Between 1936 and 1938, he completed his compulsory military service in the Latvian Army. From 1938 to 1941, he worked as a glazier for the Liepāja cooperative Tūrība.
In 1941, Lev Geller was arrested and interned in the Liepāja Ghetto. Until 1945, he was held in the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Riga and later in Buchenwald in Germany. After liberation in 1945, he managed to locate his wife, Genesa Heller (née Gilinova, b. 1920, Daugavpils); during the war, the couple had been sent to different places of imprisonment and had lost contact. From 1947, Lev Geller lived in Riga and worked as a painter at the Construction and Renovation Office of the Moscow District of Riga.
Of Geller’s family, only he and his brother, Iosif Geller (b. 1921), survived the war. His parents, Ruvin Heller (1885–1941) and Basya Heller (1886–1941), were shot in the Daugavpils Ghetto, along with his newborn daughter, Sonia Heller (1942–1943), and his siblings: Faivish Heller (1911–1941), Shmuel Heller (1918–1941), Gershon Heller (1920–1941), Esther Balkina (née Heller) (1909–1941), Slova Heller (1919–1941), and Chaya Heller (1925–1941). In 1960, Lev Geller and his wife had a daughter, also named Sonia Heller, in memory of their firstborn.
Family:
Genesa Geller (née Gilinova) (b. 1920, Daugavpils) – wife
Sonia Geller (b. 1960) – daughter
Sonia Geller (1942, Liepāja – 1943, Riga) – daughter
Ruvin Geller (1885, Daugavpils – 1941, Daugavpils) – father
Basya Geller (1886, Daugavpils – 1941, Daugavpils) – mother
Faivish Geller (1911, Daugavpils – 1941, Daugavpils) – brother
Shmuel Geller (1918, Daugavpils – 1941, Daugavpils) – brother
Gershon Geller (1920, Daugavpils – 1941, Daugavpils) – brother
Iosif Geller (b. 1921, Daugavpils) – brother
Esther Balkina (née Geller) (1909, Daugavpils – 1941, Daugavpils) – sister
Slova Geller (1919, Daugavpils – 1941, Daugavpils) – sister
Chaya Geller (1925, Daugavpils – 1941, Daugavpils) – sister