Margarita Gusak, Rita, Ritush, Ritulia, Ritusia, was born on 26 August 2002 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She was the beloved child in her small family- Rita herself, her mother Valentina, her grandfather Anatoly and her grandmother Irina. Usually she spent summertime in a rural cottage, on the shores of lake Priazha, in Karelia. Later she used to call this place Narnia.

As early as in the age of four years Rita started painting, in the House of the Arts in Saint Petersburg. From that point on, she kept on painting, never quitting this pursuit. She loved it so much, she used to draw everywhere, on the margins of school notebook pages, in albums, in the House of the Arts (where her painting teacher was Kira Ventsova), in the painting studio of Nahum Iliashimov, a painter who had studied arts in Saint Petersburg and then made Aliah and lives in Ashdod, Israel. Since she was ten, she moved with her mom to Israel, because Rita’s mother Valentina met Yigal (Igor) from Israel, and so Rita has got a father.

Immediately after moving to Israel, Rita started her studies in ceramics class under instruction of Tali Harel in Gan Yavne, where Rita and her parents Valentina and Yigal lived. Rita started studying at the Ben Gurion primary school in Gan Yavne, and soon she showed herself as an outstanding student. Both her teachers and her classmates noticed her talents. Rita surprised everyone when she decided to memorize a poem. She was puzzled by discovering that the teachers in Israel normally don’t encourage the students to memorize poems and texts, which in Russia was a commonplace. Therefore at her first ceremony of Memorial Day in Israel she read aloud the David’s elegy for king Saul and Jonathan from Shmuel B book, having learned it by heart. Back then, we couldn’t imagine, that 12 years later we would use the lines of David’s elegy as her epitaph.

During her years of study at the Yitzhak Rabin Ort High School, Rita often drew posters and signboards that the local council of Gan Yavne issued on holidays and in honor of other special dates. In high school, Rita participated for three years in the robotics class, in the “Flash” team. Rita designed the logo for her team at the school. A wall inscription in huge “Flash” letters, designed and signed by her, still decorates the wall of Ort Rabin High School. Rita graduated from school at the age of 18 in 2020 during the COVID19 pandemic. Therefore, unfortunately, she did not have a graduation party to appear in a magnificent dress. Her total score at graduating school was 119.5 points out of 120 — a very high score. Rita always strived for excellence. When she got a grade of 97 or 98, out of 100, she wasn’t satisfied and always wondered what was missing to get a 100. This self-discipline led to her graduating the twelfth grade as the top of twelfth grade classes in her school. Rita’s world is very diverse. She was interested in everything both during and after school. From Japanese language studies until the latest researches in biology, from windsurfing to the culinary art.

A year after we started living together in Israel, a cat named Moorley joined our family, she is also Rita’s muse. A respectable part of Rita’s works in both painting and sculpture are dedicated to Moorley. The series of paintings of family members with Moorley was jokingly called “The Empress and Her Entourage”.

In 2016, Rita’s younger brother — Eithan — was born. He is also an important character who appears a lot in her works.

From the age of 12 or so the Rita was attracted by the aesthetics of Japanese anime films, among others films by Japanese producer Miyazaki. She began to learn Japanese with the help of Yigal, her real father. She mastered about one thousand kanji characters (out of about 3000 possible). She invested lot of imagination in costumes for Purim, Costumes for cosplay communities. In one of these events Rita participated as an assistant to the organizers. Since then, Alucard, the hero of the anime, appeared in her bedroom, peeking from behind the closet. A sudden gaze at his figure would be frightening. Our Rita is a lady for celebrations, she loved parties and celebrations in a real way, as a child she liked pajama parties and later she liked dance parties, birthdays, Israeli holidays, Novy God. She loved watching movies with her friends, playing board games (Taki was her favorite game). Every year we tried to make her happy on her birthday with unusual things. At the age of 12, she spent her birthday at Euro-Disney in Paris, later there was also a hot air balloon ride with her friends. At the age of 21, Rita received a flight with a paraglider as a birthday present.

Like many of her friends, during her studies at school she was a volunteer assistant at Red Magen David, took shifts, helped the paramedics actively.

Rita treated her grandparents, her mother’s parents and her father Yigal’s parents very warmly. There are portraits of Lena, Yigal’s mother, of Yossi, Yigal’s stepfather, along with Eithan, Rita’s little brother. Unfortunately, she did not have time to paint the portraits of her grandmother Irina and grandfather Anatoly. There is only a pencil portrait sketch of her grandmother Irina. Rita very much loved Esther the grandmother of Dolev Revivo, one of her best friends. Esther also became attached to her. The Revivo family still has two still life pictures in their house. Larissa, grandmother of Simon, Rita’s special friend, also keeps Rita’s work with her. One of her latest works is a portrait of Tatiana Levin, the grandmother of two Levin brothers, Rita’s friends.

Some of her teachers and instructors also played an important role in her development as an artist. For example Tali Harel, her teacher at the ceramics class. Tali’s class allows for self-expression rather than just instruction. Tali did not set a goal to direct and confine the child’s development path in the way that she found it good. She teaches technique, but also allows the child to realize his own ideas. Rita loved Tali, continued to visit her in the class even after she finished school, and during the military service. Nahum Iliashimov, Rita’s painting teacher, became more than just a teacher, he became part of our family. He treated Rita as his apprentice, almost as his daughter. Nahum is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. He taught Rita the academic technique of painting, and together with us, the parents, exposed her to the classical artistic heritage of mankind. His classes are an alloy of art history, the technical method of painting, creation in all its phenomena. He managed to direct her talents, and enrich them.

When Rita was 14, we visited Rome, Italy together. Here Rita got to know the works of a great Italian painter from the 17th century, Caravaggio, the founder of realism in Italian art. She understood Caravaggio’s art with her heart, fell in love with Caravaggio’s works, his ambitions to show real life in his work. The result of this acquaintance is the copy of the picture “The Calling of St. Matthew”. She worked on this piece under the supervision of Nahum at the age of 14.

Rita has some other later works that are copies of classic works by well-known artists, such as Rubens’ Venus with Mirror, which she brought as a 21st birthday present for Simon. There are also copies of Van Hoch pictures, as well as a copy of the Icon of Saint Mary from the Saint Cyrill Church in Kiev, Ukraine a product of Vrubel’s brush.

Rita was also tutored by the sculptor Ilya Ovchinnikov. He was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in a family of painters, graduated from the Faculty of Arts in his city. Also in Israel, Ilya works as a sculptor, engraves on stone. He says: “Nahum introduced me to Rita about 5 years ago. I saw her works and I was surprised that at such a young age Rita was already so professional in what she did. In general, she is a very developed girl, and her works are of a high standard. Rita immediately started helping me with the work. She immediately impressed me when she was able to engrave quite a complex image on marble. We started working together.” Ilya introduced Rita to the technique of working with clay. Simon’s sculpted bust is her latest work in this field.

When the children in Israel reach the age of 16, they have the opportunity to make a trip to Poland to visit the sites of the Holocaust. It was a very important trip for Rita, to understand many things about herself, to learn things about her identity, to grow up. At that time, we all knew that these were terrible events, but yet, already a history. Foregone but not forgotten. And we were sure that such events cannot be repeated, nevermore, and that the memory of the events is the guarantee for this… No one could have guessed, not even in his nightmares, that in our days the Holocaust would return, and our dear Ritulia would fall as a victim of the new Holocaust.

In the 10th grade, the students were given an assignment to write an essay on their favorite song. Rita chose a song by the metal band “Dream Theater” — called “In the name of God”. This song about terrorism, the propaganda of murder, the propaganda of death for the sake of an illusion, the devaluation of human life, the denial of the right of every person to live… these are the questions that interested her, how much tragic it sounds now.

After finishing school, Rita, like most of her classmates, joined the army. She served in the air force, part of her tasks was operating communication devices and observation equipment, to gather intelligence from the air. She participated in these flights personally. This is a combat role, a job with risk. Rita always approached her tasks with full responsibility, and managed it in an excellent way, despite the difficulties that are so usual in the military routine.

In the second year of service, an important and happy event happened. Rita joined the “Nativ” course — the path to conversion in the IDF. This was another opportunity for her to know her identity, to ask herself who you are, where you came from. And here Rita met Simon, Semyon, Sioma, Siomchik, Simon Wigdergauz-Dovzhenko, this is where the love story began… Only then it was the time when they both were completely happy, and it hurts so much to think that their love story ended so quickly and tragically.

These are lines written later by Emuna, the commander of the Nativ course, when she visited the Nova commemoration site, in the area where they were both murdered: “Today I was in the Nova site. I was looking for you among the pictures. The amount is indigestible. I started getting dizzy. And then I saw you. How beautiful you are, Rita. And suddenly I realized that you were in this hell, and at the same time I realized what a huge and significant mark you left on my heart. I will never forget you. I want you to hear about Rita from my heart, the way I saw her. Rita was plucked out brutally and horrifyingly, along with Simon in their happiest moment. I got to see Rita and Simon fall in love before of my eyes, pure and exciting love. We would look at their loving glances, one at the other, it was impossible to miss it, even in the cluttered up schedule of the entire course. And they are in the world of love as if everything around them stopped. And now the time has really stopped for them. And it hurts so much in my heart! I am comforted by one thing — that I am sure that on 07.10 at 6:00 you were so happy together! On the top of the world… in love… dancing… free… Rita, only a month and a half into the course and you already taught me a lesson for life. A lesson about what the real love is — the greatest lesson we need to learn. A lesson on intelligence, respect, uniqueness, courage. A lesson that every person is a whole world. The Nativ course is a melting pot, everyone comes with his or her own history, own story, and you were so curious to get to know each person, hear each story, and you made each one feel so special, you united the entire course with special connections you created. You made everyone dance during the breaks. I’m sure you make everyone dance up in heaven. Everyone wanted to be Rita’s friend. It was the reason that you were chosen to excel in the course. There is no one who did not fall in love with you. I love you Rita! It is impossible to summarize in a couple of lines how special you are. You don’t know what kind of mark you left on my heart. Thanks for getting to know you. May God avenge your blood! “

Here it is a very good place to tell about Rita’s acquaintance with another photographer — Vladimir Bokser, a great admirer of painting and the arts. He met Rita in the studio of Nahum the painter, when she was 12 years old. He began to photograph her while working on the paintings. Thanks to Vladimir we have an album of her stunning photos at the age of 12. This is a Bat Mitzvah age… thanks to Vladimir we have a detailed record of the course of her artistic development. Vladimir remains a devout admirer of Rita’s art.

After the two young loving souls, Rita and Simon finished their service in the IDF, they took a far reaching trip to Italy, the traditional post-army trip. The trip was full of new discoveries, lots of love, lots of plans for the future, after all one can’t embrace and get to know all of Italy at once. They were in the museums of Milan, Florence, Bergamo, visited the opera at La Scala. They were in Venice, and in the Alpine region of Northern Italy. We were so happy for them, we were so proud of them, we eagerly awaited the photographic and detailed reports that Rita sent every day.

Simultaneously with the military service, Rita and Simon were preparing themselves for higher education, getting ready to pass the psychometric test. Rita passed the exam several times in order to get a score above the entrance threshold for the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which is exactly where she dreamed of studying. She passed the exam at the beginning of September 2023 and waited for the results with a lot of worry. The excellent result was sent to her email on October 10th. The score was 730, above the entrance threshold for that faculty. She did not get to be informed of such a happy thing.Every word in this story is bathed in bloody tears, with a sharp incurable longing. Words are worthless, there are no words to describe the pain of bereavement and the degree of despair…
Her elementary school teacher, Sarah, wrote about her: I knew you would be a great scientist, or an expert physician who would save many lives, or maybe a great Israeli painter and artist whose early works I already have in my home. Or maybe both. But I couldn’t imagine that I will write these lines for your memory, for you, only 21 years old in your last day.