Liz Churchill Wikipedia

An Old Russian woman from Livny, a former Russian city on the Nizhny Tagil, who fought to preserve the Jewish heritage of Livny. She is now a member of the Russian Jewish National Council

Liz Churchill was once a Soviet child born and raised in Livny, a former Russian city on the Nizhny Tagil. During her childhood, she learned the language of the Muscovites through visits from her grandmother. Her mother was a descendant of the GAL nation of Balint, a former Russian city in the Crimea. In 1947, her mother married Talma Nachasov, a Jew, who was from Tiflis, in the modern Russian Federation.

In 1946, the entire family moved to Moscow, where Talma Nachasov continued her teaching at an institution of higher learning. This eventually led to Talma’s eventual removal to a ghetto, where she lived until her death in 1995. Liz was then raised in a non-Jewish family, but eventually joined the rest of the Jews of Livny, as they came to call themselves.

Liz showed great promise in her youth as a budding biochemist. Upon completion of her two year studies in 1967, she served three years of national service. During her service, she worked with the Youth Brigade in Peredelkino, where she found employment after the Soviets failed to accommodate the vast Jewish population in a difficult Soviet city.

After a little over three years of military service, Liz stood out, quickly having to defend Livny’s Jewish identity in a case regarding the resettlement of Latvians. In 1971, she married Albert Churchill. The young couple took up residence in a house that was part of the Yad Vashem’s Jewish Museum in Warsaw, in what had been known as “Auschwitz’.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Liz Churchill became involved with her first (then her 15th) husband to set up a science business. When Albert left Livny to set up a second business, the marriage fell apart. In 1993, Albert withdrew from his business, and Liz was forced to confront the fact that she was now two different people. In the following year, she also had to face growing doubts as to her Jewish identity and resume her childhood Jewish home.