When the German Wehrmacht invaded Minsk in June 1941, seven-year-old Rachel Davidson, her parents Israel and Fruma, and her two siblings did not manage to flee the city. The Davidson family had to move into the Minsk ghetto shortly after. At the end of 1941 they escaped from the ghetto but could not find a suitable place to hide, and soon returned there.
Rachel Davidson’s father hid from the coordinated murder campaigns with the Kanapatski family, Tatar friends who lived outside the ghetto. Rachel regularly left the ghetto in secret to collect food from the Kanapatskis. During a murder campaign in March 1942, Rachel and her younger brother Vladimir were arrested and were to be shot dead. Rachel bribed a Ukrainian guard with a piece of jewelry and the guard concealed the children in a latrine. They spent three days hiding there.
In 1943 the Davidsons escaped from the ghetto. They posed as Christians and tried to find somewhere to stay in the countryside. Unable to find a safe hiding place after several weeks, they fled to the surrounding forest. They survived with a Jewish partisan unit under the command of Shalom Zorin.