My great-great grandmother's maiden name--SOLVED (I think)!

I'd posted about 3 months ago about how my great-great grandmother's maiden name was given as "Christ" on her daughter Jenny Diamond Dorfman's marriage license--not quite the typical Jewish family name!  There were lots of ideas given via facebook, but it was all conjecture.

Last week, a cousin posted a letter that Jenny's daughter Ida Dorfman Hall had written in 1980.  I'd seen this letter before when we first figured out the connection to this branch because of DNA testing.  Ida had mentioned a cousin Sam who had left Europe along with her, her mother, and her brother.  I'd identified the cousin on the manifest, but the name meant nothing to me at the time, so I assumed he was likely related on Ida's paternal side.

But seeing the letter again made me pull up that manifest.

Schmul Kreiss Ship Manifest (line 26); December 1913

Sonia Bajcz Diamond: The Ending of the War (Part 7: 1944-1945)

This is the seventh in a series that summarize an interview of my grandmother, Sonia Bajcz/Beitch Diamond (then Sara Bajcz), from about 20 years ago.  This continues her story after the Germans retreated from the Wolyn area and the Russians came in, and then as the war truly came to an end.  Previous posts in this series are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

We soon came to the village where my husband had left his brother and sister.  His sister had left to Lutsk, but his brother was there.  I left to find my mother.  She was still with the man who had taken care of her the whole time.

Soon after a Russian soldier saw me walking and was trying to catch me.  I hid in a special bunker that a lady had.  I told the lady after who said, "Didn't you go through enough already?"

I took my mother along with a lot of Ukrainians, and we went to Lutsk by foot, since there was no place for us in the village.  The war was not yet over, and we were still in danger.  We got a room and lived there.  My husband came there, too.  But that year he was drafted into the Russian army, and they were first sent to Vladimir-Volynsk.  I followed and took cigarette paper to be able to sell for some rubles.