​This is a ketubah (wedding contract) from the marriage of Beila Fainshtein and Motia Gabis, which took place in the ghetto of Bershad, Ukraine (then the Soviet Union), in 1942. The ketubah was written on a page from a school notebook. The unadorned text is written in simple Hebrew script and signed by two witnesses at the bottom. In her interview with Centropa, Beila relates that she didn’t love Motia when she married him but felt sorry for him and agreed to the marriage. The marriage was conducted by a rabbi according to Jewish law and included both an engagement and marriage ceremony. Life in the ghetto was extremely difficult, but the family was able to gather together the basics needed for a Jewish wedding ceremony. A former non-Jewish school friend of Motia was on guard duty in the ghetto during the wedding ceremony. He contributed food for the celebration, which took place without guests because people were not allowed to gather in groups or walk in the streets after curfew. Friends fashioned a chuppah (wedding canopy) out of blankets instead of a tallit (prayer shawl), as the Germans had previously confiscated all of the men’s tallitot and tefillin.

Beila and Motia survived the Holocaust and remained in Bershad. Many relatives, including their grandchildren, moved to Israel. Motia died in 1994. Beila summed up her life with the following words: “I think I am a very happy woman regardless of all ordeals that we had to go through. My husband and I were always together and we were close.”