If you ask senior citizens from the former Soviet Union about June 22nd, their expressions will immediately darken. It's the day in the summer of 1941 when, for them, "the war began"—with the invasion of German troops. That was 85 years ago. Even in Vinnytsia, there are still survivors who can tell us about that time.
By Anemone Rüger
Jewish life in Vinnytsia has a long history by Ukrainian standards: a Jewish community has been registered in the Ukrainian regional capital since the early 16th century. Until the First World War, local pogroms increased in the wake of nationalist movements. While the religious life of the Jewish community was suppressed with the Soviet takeover, an active cultural life persisted until the 1930s – with a Yiddish workers' and peasants' theater, Yiddish-language schools, a Yiddish choir, and several newspapers. The district of Jerusalemka, with its name, still recalls the once strong Jewish presence in the city, which, with more than 33,000 members, comprised a third of the city's population.
Vinnytsia, more than almost any other city, represents blood-soaked Ukrainian soil. As early as 1938, the Stalinist secret police perpetrated a massacre, murdering nearly 10,000 political prisoners in Vinnytsia. After the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and the subsequent German invasion, the medieval city of Vinnytsia became an administrative center for death and destruction. The Nazi Party headquarters, codenamed Werwolf, was built just eight kilometers north in the forest. The city's Jews were initially confined to a ghetto.
Death by shooting and suffocation
In April 1942, those fit for work were selected, forced to work on railway tracks, and shot after completing their labor. 5,000 women, children, and the elderly, including new mothers from the hospital's maternity ward, were shot and thrown into a mass grave; newborns were buried alive. According to conservative estimates, around 22,000 Jewish citizens were murdered in Vinnytsia by the German-fascist occupation. The mass graves remain easily accessible in the heart of the city, just as they were originally dug.
Most Holocaust survivors living in Vinnytsia today grew up in the surrounding Jewish shtetls and only later moved to the regional capital, which is comparable to a German state capital. Visiting these people, who have endured so much, in their old age is just as important to the team of Christians Standing with Israel as supporting materially needy Jewish seniors with food and medicine.
Alexander – betrayed by police officers from the village
While Koen Carlier, head of CSI's work in Ukraine, is traveling with some colleagues to the heavily attacked north to deliver 600 food parcels to the Jewish community, my colleague Alina and I have visits on our agenda. It's astonishing that we are still finding new survivors to whom we can bring a healing touch of God's love. It's also astonishing what magnificent flower arrangements can be found for ten or fifteen euros in a country in a state of acute war. Perhaps that's precisely why people have such a strong desire to create and share beauty.
We had to earn our visit with Alexander. Until now, his wife had kept him isolated. But today we were in luck. Alexander was up and about and responsive. After two heart attacks, he wasn't always easy to understand, but his mind was clear. He told us about his grandparents, Aron and Sofia Katz, who were betrayed by local Ukrainian auxiliary police of the Nazis and shot shortly afterward. He and his mother were also betrayed and ended up in the Shornishche ghetto. "We lived there like dogs," Alexander said. "Shornishche used to be a Jewish shtetl. After the war, there were only three mass graves left."
Otherwise, he hardly remembers anything. However, the difficult years after the war are very vivid in his memory. "Dad came back from the war crippled. He was blind and couldn't work anymore. I always got up with Mom at midnight. Then we took turns queuing for food until morning, all night long. There were four shops in Kalinovka, and there was a line like this at each one. Each person got 35 grams of bread."
“He didn’t speak until he was ten,” Schelja says about her husband. “Now he’s making up for lost time.” Then Alexander also tells of the Germans who came to him a few years ago and begged his forgiveness on their knees.
Flowers to feel for Raissa
I'm also seeing Raissa for the first time. Here, it's the man who watches over her every move. "I've got a good husband, Grigory," Raissa tells us. "He's Ukrainian. He takes very good care of me. We've been married for 64 years!"
When I realize that Raissa can't see anything at all, I almost feel sorry for the lavish flower arrangement we brought her. Then I have the idea to let Raissa smell the flowers. The next few moments are like something out of a movie. "Oh, what a bouquet! I love flowers!" Then Raissa gently strokes each individual flower—the lilies, the roses and carnations, the orchids and the asters. "What a bouquet! What wonderful flowers! What a special day you've given me!"
Noikhovna's name was Raissa, her father's name being Noich, or Noah. Her mother's name was Pessja. Here, too, the question of who in the family was Jewish is irrelevant. Both grandfathers fell victim to the Holodomor, the artificially induced famine under Stalin.
Grandmother Chowa had nine children. Most of the family perished in the Pechora death camp. "I still remember the gunshots and how we hid under the bed," says Raissa. Little Raissa, along with her mother and sister, was taken to the Mogilov ghetto on the Moldovan border. Eventually, they managed to escape. Raissa has an incredible memory. She remembered every name, every date. "I remember the day of liberation, when the Germans had to retreat and our army arrived. The whole village wept with relief."
Mikhail – copper pans for a loaf of bread
Mikhail had set a perfect table, lovingly arranging salad and cold cuts on each plate. He speaks a heartwarming Yiddish Russian with a German "r" sound. We are probably his first guests since burying his wife of 54 years.
His parents were named Matvey and Sura, both from the Vinnytsia area. "Dad went straight to the front," Mikhail tells us as he serves us. "He never came back. I never met him. He was reported missing. That was terrible because widows didn't receive any compensation. I never met a single member of his family. It was as if they had never existed." Right at the beginning of the war, Mikhail, just one year old, was taken to the Bershad ghetto with his mother. Their barracks were hit in a bombing raid. "I have no idea how we survived. Everything burned. I don't have a single photo of Dad," Mikhail says.
The hunger was so great that Mikhail's mother traded her copper pans for a loaf of bread. She managed to take little Mikhail to her sister-in-law in the countryside, "so they could help feed me there," Mikhail said. "But then the Germans came. They took me, my aunt, and my cousin Boris first to the Shargorod ghetto, then to the Pechora death camp. One day, my aunt saw a policeman she knew through the fence. She bribed him to free us. She had a gold medallion with her. He had a horse-drawn cart. With it, he got a total of nine children out."
After liberation came the years of hunger. "Mama worked hard to keep us alive," Mikhail recalls. "She got salt and sold it at the market. We helped her, wearing our galoshes. We didn't have any shoes. Mama had to re-register us after the war. All our papers had been destroyed in the fire. But that cost money: five kopeks per birth certificate. Five kopeks was all Mama had. So she could only register one child at a time. Once, aid supplies were being distributed. That's when Mama managed to get me a pair of shorts. They were men's shorts. They were much too big for me; it looked like I was wearing a skirt. But there was nothing else. I had to wear them until sixth grade."
Mikhail would have liked to study, but his family couldn't afford the luxury. Instead, he went to work after school to earn money. Antisemitic taunts were so commonplace in his environment that he only mentioned them when asked.
Mikhail speaks a little German. He learned it from the volunteers of the Catholic Max Kolbe Foundation, who regularly came to Ukraine and enabled survivors to recuperate at the Khmelnyk Sanatorium. How wonderful that we can build on this and, especially as Germans, bring a measure of healing to these lonely survivors.
This article first appeared in our newspaper "Israelaktuell," issue 145. You can order the newspaper here . We would also be happy to send you several copies for distribution.
