Ida Tseitlin (Sadovska)

Ida Tseitlin (married Sadovska) was born in 1910 in the family of Naum and Fania Tseitlin. 

She graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory in the class of piano. It was there that she met her future husband Mykhailo Sadovskyi, who was studying oboe. On October 13, 1939, the couple had a daughter, Larysa.

Ida worked as a pianist.  Her daughter recalls that they lived on Krasnoarmiiska Street (presently Velyka Vasylkivska Street). Ida’s husband was at the front from the beginning of the war.

Ida and her mother Fania (56) were killed in Babyn Yar, and her father Naum (58) was shot in the yard of his own house. Ida was walking to Babyn Yar holding her almost two-year-old daughter in her arms. On the way to Babyn Yar, she realized that they were not being led to a mere gathering point. While the police were looking away, Ida handed her daughter to a friend she happened to notice standing behind the police line. Ida saved her daughter but was killed herself.

This story was told to her daughter Larysa by her cousin Ippolit Davydovych Sobol.

Since after the war, Larysa and her father Mykhailo Sadovskyi have been visiting  Babyn Yar every September 29.