FRYDMAN, Deborah (Dora) Khenikhovna

(née: Dvoira Yankel; revolutionary pseudonym: “Dora”)

June 22, 1899, Berdichev, Kyiv Governorate – September 1943, Auschwitz.

Jewish. Lived in Odessa. Anarchist since 1919. Member of the Confederation of Anarchist Organizations of Ukraine “Nabat” and the Odessa Federation of Anarchists “Nabat.”

In 1921 (mentioned as “Dora”), she lived in Odessa and worked as a paramedic. Member of the pro-Bolshevik Union of Anarchist Positivists.

On November 7, 1921, after the mass arrests of anarchists and Mensheviks at the “Igla” trade union club, she spoke to workers, leading to the closure of several workshops of Gubodezhda. [“Gubodezhda” is an abbreviation for the Provincial Directorate for the Production of Military Uniforms, Food, and Civilian Clothing, an agency that operated during the early years of Soviet power.] In the early 1920s, she married Z. Kh. Frydman.

She was arrested by the Nazis in Paris in the summer of 1942 along with her husband. She was held in the Drancy transit camp outside Paris. On August 24, 1942, the Friedmans were deported on Transport No. 23 to the Auschwitz concentration camp. According to Yelensky, “As the train departed, a note was thrown from the train car asking for a letter to be sent to our address. It eventually reached us, and its contents were brief and heartbreaking: ‘They’re taking us away; we don’t know where. Take care of our child.’ That was the last we heard from Semka and Dora.”

She was murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz in September 1943.

After the end of World War II, the Frydman’s daughter, Michelle, received financial assistance from the Alexander Berkman Aid Fund and other anarchist organizations. 

Husband – Friedman Z. Kh., sister (?) – Yankel F., brother (?) – Yankel Ya.

Archives: GDA SBU [State Archives Department of the Security Service of Ukraine], f. 13, spr. 415, vol. 1, arch. 1000, 1028, 1039, 1041. Literature: Frydman Z.Kh. // Ezhevika. [See Sam Frydman – Zalmen Khaimovich Friedman by Kirill Limanov, translated by: Malcolm Archibald in KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 74-75, August 2013 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/ns1t20] Unused source: Yelensky B. In the Struggle for Equality: The Story of the Anarchist Red Cross. – Chicago. Alexander Berkman Aid Fund. 1958, pp. 69-70.

Translated by: Malcolm Archibald.