Rozaliya “Roza” Mildvorf was born on August 18, 1938, in the city of Odessa, Ukraine.


 Her parents were Jewish and named Monya and Yelizabeta Leya.


Roza was only three years old when everything changed. In October 1941, Romanian soldiers took over Odessa. Romania was fighting on the same side as Nazi Germany.


On October 22, a bomb went off inside the Romanian army headquarters. Nobody knows for sure who did it, but the Romanians instantly blamed the Jewish people and communists who lived in the city.


The next few days were pure horror. Soldiers started rounding up Jews and hanging them in the streets. In one single day, more than five thousand people were killed.


Little Roza, her mom, and her dad were forced into a group of survivors marched to old warehouses and barns outside town. A three-year-old girl must have been so frightened and confused, holding tight to her parents’ hands.


Once the buildings were packed with people, the soldiers locked the doors, poured gasoline, and set everything on fire. They shot at the roofs and walls so bullets rained down inside. Anyone who tried to run out was shot dead.


Around twenty thousand people died in those burning buildings. Three-year-old Roza and her parents were among them. They were burned alive.


May Roza and her family be remembered with love and blessings.


We must never forget: the Nazis were not the only ones who did this. Romanian soldiers, police, and ordinary people helped make the murder of Jews happen faster and on a bigger scale. Many countries worked together to make the Holocaust as terrible as it was.

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