After a harrowing 300-mile journey, the family found sanctuary in Kazakhstan. Food and resources were scarce for years. She recalled walking barefoot through snow. Her father, a tailor, fashioned clothing out of flour sacks for the family.

“We stayed here and there,” Mrs. Pevzner said. “It was a hard life.”

After the war, the family settled in Ukraine, where they lived in a small basement apartment. They slept on iron beds, using rags as mattress padding. For years, Mrs. Pevzner had just one set of garments: underwear, slippers and a cherry-colored dress with white dots.

“I washed every day, and I went to work every day in the same clothes,” she said.

Mrs. Pevzner worked as a bookkeeper. In 1953, a matchmaker introduced her to the man she would marry. A year later, their son was born.

Shortly after her mother died, Mrs. Pevzner, then 50, immigrated to the United States with her husband and her son. She did not know a word of English, but wasted no time learning it.