Raikin (Reikin) (née Meilakh) Berta (Beyla) Leibovna (31 January 1900, Liepāja) — artisan.
Berta Raikin was born to Leiba Ruvimovich Meylakh (1870, Lepel, Vitebsk Region, Belarus — murdered by the Nazis in 1941, Liepāja) and Pesya Berkovna Meylakh (1874, Senno, Vitebsk Region, Belarus — 1941, Liepāja). Graduated from four classes of the Liepāja Tamburg Progymnasium (1916). Was dependent on her parents and brothers (1916–1922), worked as a shop assistant in a private store (1922–1935), again dependent on her parents and brothers (1935–1937), and later dependent on her husband (1937–1941).
In 1941, the Nazis murdered her father and her brothers — Aron Leibovich Meilakh and Iosif Leibovich Meylakh (her mother had died earlier after a serious illness). Berta tore the yellow badges from her clothing, which all Jews were ordered by the Nazis to wear, took her three-year-old son in her arms, and, accompanied by her good acquaintance Anna Fimbauer, reached the latter’s home. They hid in a tiny closet there until 1944. In November 1943, her husband, Isaak Grigoryevich Raikin, who had managed to escape from the Riga Ghetto, also came there.
In November 1944, by Nazi order, the residents of Libau (now Liepāja) were required to leave the city for the countryside. Using forged documents, together with Anna Fimbauer, Kazimir, Anna, and little Janis Jablonskis (mute from birth) left for a village as “refugees from Dvinsk.” Out of eight thousand Jews of Liepāja, only twenty-two survived.
After the Second World War she was a homemaker (1945–1953), and worked as a licensed artisan under a patent issued by the Liepāja financial department (1953–1969).
Married to Isaak Grigoryevich Raikin (1900, Polotsk, Belarus); their son is Gerson Isaakovich Raikin (1939, Liepāja).
In 1969 Berta Raikin received permission to emigrate to Israel, where her sister, Landa (née Meylakh) Khaya Minna Leybovna (1900, Polotsk, Belarus), resided.
Family:
Leiba Ruvimovich Meylakh (1870–1941) — father
Pesya Berkovna Meilakh (1874–1941) — mother
Aron Leibovich Meilakh (1902–1941, Liepāja) — brother
Iosif Leibovich Meilakh (1906–1941, Liepāja) — brother
Landa (née Meilakh) Khaya Minna Leibovna (1900) — sister
Isaak Grigoryevich Raikin (1900) — husband
Gerson Isaakovich Raikin (1939) — son