Blue and white striped dress made postwar by a Jewish Polish survivor

Cyla Scheer (later Celia Dymant) was born on March 13, 1934, in Zalosce, Poland (Zalisti, Ukraine), the only child of Froim and Feiga Moskowicz Scheer. Froim was born on October 16, 1904, to Leib and Slava Moszkowicz Scheer. Feiga, the youngest of eleven children, was born on July 15, 1910, to Josef and Shprinza Lausker Moszkowicz. Feiga’s parents lived in the nearby village of Reniv, and in 1941, nine of Feiga’s siblings still lived there, all but one married with children. Froim and Feiga married in 1933 and settled in Zalosce where Froim had many family members. Froim was a baker and Feiga and other family members worked in the bakery. The family lived in the same building as the bakery. They spoke Polish, but used Yiddish within the family. The town had a closeknit Jewish community of about 700.

In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Three weeks later, the Soviet Union invaded from the east. Per the terms of the German Soviet pact, the Zalosce area fell under Soviet administration. The bakery was confiscated, but they had to continue to work there. The family was evicted from their home and moved in with relatives. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and, on July 9, German troops entered Zalosce. Several Jewish residents were killed in the streets and many Jewish homes were looted by their Ukrainian neighbors. The Germans demanded large monetary contributions and other valuables such as furs and furniture. Jews were assigned as forced laborers, many doing road construction. In the summer of 1942, Gestapo agents arrived from Tarnopol and many more Jewish residents were killed. Because there was a need for bakers, the Scheer family and their relatives were kept in town.

In October 1942, most of the remaining Jews were sent to the ghetto in Zborow. Froim, Feiga, Cyla, and some other relatives hid with the help of a former maid, Tachka Barkito, and her family. They were moved frequently and hidden by a series of other Ukrainian peasants. They stayed only a short time with each family. Most of those who helped lived near Reniv, and among them were Mikolo Barkito, Samko Kokorozu and Roman Zacharow. Probably in the spring of 1943, the Scheer, Lausker, and Moszkowicz families prepared dugouts in the forest near Reniv. There were about twenty-five adults and children, and they separated into three groups. The adults would leave the dugout during the day to search for food. On March 7, 1944, the region was liberated by Soviet partisans. After nearly a year of living underground, sitting most of the time, Cyla and her cousins were unable to walk. The area was soon retaken by the Germans and the surviving Jews escaped to the east. On March 23, 1944, the city was liberated once again by the Red Army. The Scheers, and the other members of their hidden group, returned to town where Cyla’s family discovered other people living in their home. The town mayor took the family into his home which had belonged to Cyla’s cousins before the war. During the final months of 1944, a number of Jews who had fled to the Soviet Union returned to Zalosce. In spring 1945, Cyla and her family moved to Zborow and later to Opole in western Poland. The war ended on May 8.

On April 13, 1946, Cyla and her parents left Poland and traveled to Paris, France. In September 1949, they immigrated to Canada. On August 18, 1950, the family arrived in New York. Cyla married Sam Dymant (1928-2001), a Holocaust survivor from Łódź, Poland.