Yetta Kane was born in Myadzyel, Poland during Hanukkah of 1932, the youngest of three siblings. She grew up in a close-knit, rural shtetl in what is today Belarus. Her family had a working farm, and her father ran a dry goods store out of the family home. Yetta’s family was religiously observant, with life centered around the rhythm of the Jewish calendar and holidays.

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At the age of eight, Yetta had her first encounter with the Nazis. She saw a little Polish girl, her neighbor, pointing at a Jewish man and calling him “Zide,” Polish for “Jew.” A German soldier pulled out a revolver and shot the man. Shortly thereafter, the Nazis and local Polish collaborators, having invited them to a “meeting,” forced 60 Jews from Myadzyel to dig a mass grave at gunpoint, after which they killed them. Yetta’s father, Zelik, had been invited to this meeting, but instead hid his family and a group of 38 others in the forest. The family joined the Partisan Resistance, with fighters in one group and families in the other. The group was always on the move with very few supplies, and Yetta, with her blonde hair and blue eyes, was often sent as a courier between the groups at the age of eight. She still has nightmares of the German Shepherds barking as they chased her in the freezing forest.

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The family of five survived, making their way to Russia, where they were sent to a work camp in Siberia. There, they could wait out the war, albeit in harsh and frigid conditions. After the war, with a new baby sister born in Siberia, they made the long and winding journey to Los Angeles in 1949. Yetta was just sixteen years old.

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Yetta married David Kane, a survivor from Poland, in 1952. They had three children, six grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. Together with her husband, Yetta is the author of How to Survive Anything.