Alla Ilyinichna Sinelnikova (left), 90, and Sonya Leibovna Tartakovskaya, 83, were recently evacuated from Ukraine to Germany. Both were Holocaust survivors, and this was the second time they had fled the war. Sinelnikova said: “I never thought I would live to see such horror for the second time in my life. “I thought it was my past, it’s all over and done. And now we’re reliving it.”
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Alla Ilyinichna Sinelnikova (left), 90, and Sonya Leibovna Tartakovskaya, 83, were recently evacuated from Ukraine to Germany. Both were Holocaust survivors, and this was the second time they had fled the war. Sinelnikova said: “I never thought I would live to see such horror for the second time in my life. “I thought it was my past, it’s all over and done. And now we’re reliving it.”
Esme Nicholson / NPR
BERLIN – At a retirement home on the eastern edge of Berlin, half a dozen women in their 80s and 90s sit together for lunch. Their conversation was lively in the cozy dining room.
They narrowly escaped death for the second time in their lives.
The women were Ukrainian Holocaust survivors who fled Nazi Germany as children. Now, in old age, they have to flee again – this time from the Russians.
A major evacuation effort is underway to bring Holocaust survivors in Ukraine to safety. Recently, dozens of people have come to Germany, the country they once feared.
Among Ukrainians struggling to flee Russian attacks, the elderly at home, often unable to reach shelter, are among the most vulnerable. Last month, Russian shelling killed 96-year-old Boris Romanchenko in his apartment in Kharkiv. In his youth, Romanchenko survived forced labor and four Nazi concentration camps.
One of those who went to Germany was Sonya Leibovna Tartakovskaya, a retired seamstress from Irpin, near Kyiv. Today is her 83rd birthday.
Tartakovskaya said she was extremely relieved to be in this retirement home, located near a large Russian-speaking community. Ukrainian authorities say they have found evidence in her homeland of Russian atrocities against civilians.
Tartakovskaya said: “For 20 days, I had no gas, no water, no light. “When the war started, I weighed 100 pounds – my normal weight. When I got here, I weighed almost half.”
She says she has gained 10 pounds since arriving in Berlin.
Sonya Leibovna Tartakovskaya recently celebrated her 83rd birthday, which she feels blessed to have marked. She is a retired seamstress in Irpin, near Kyiv, where Ukrainian authorities have reported evidence of Russian military atrocities against civilians.
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Sonya Leibovna Tartakovskaya recently celebrated her 83rd birthday, which she feels blessed to have marked. She is a retired seamstress in Irpin, near Kyiv, where Ukrainian authorities have reported evidence of Russian military atrocities against civilians.
Esme Nicholson / NPR
She used to have a family in this city. An older cousin, a student here in the 1930s, was murdered by the Nazis for being Jewish, as were many of her other relatives.
As the other women left the lunch table for an afternoon nap, Tartakovskaya stayed behind to talk to 90-year-old Alla Ilyinichna Sinelnikova, who had just arrived from Kharkiv.
“This war is a disaster. It’s really terrible,” Sinelnikova whispered. “I never thought I’d live to see such horror a second time in my life. I think it’s my past, past and done. And now we’re reliving it. .”
Getting the oldest refugees to safety requires special planning and care
Sinelnikova was 9 years old when she ran away from Kharkiv for the first time. Fearing Nazi repression, she and her family were evacuated to Sverdlovsk in west-central Russia, where they witnessed the fighting. She couldn’t believe she had to go to Berlin to escape the Russians who offered her asylum after the Germans invaded Ukraine in 1941.
“It’s a strange paradox. I never trusted the Russians “Half of my family is from Russia,” says Sinelnikova. How can I hate them? I can’t, even if I wanted to. “
Sinelnikova forgot how her journey from Kharkiv to Berlin was, saying it was probably best to go that way. She is worried about her children and grandchildren, whom she has not heard from for weeks.
Alla Ilyinichna Sinelnikova, 90, recently ran away from Kharkiv for the second time in her life. The first time she was nine years old.
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Alla Ilyinichna Sinelnikova, 90, recently ran away from Kharkiv for the second time in her life. The first time she was nine years old.
Esme Nicholson / NPR
Rüdiger Mahlo, from the German Jewish Claims Conference, a nonprofit that helps Holocaust survivors, is coordinating the evacuation effort. Mahlo said it took about 50 different people to evacuate just one elderly person from Ukraine. They usually have to be transported by ambulance.
When they are in Germany, he said, these senior refugees need to be placed in care facilities where staff speak Russian or Ukrainian. “As in any war, the weakest are the most vulnerable, and Holocaust survivors belong to the most vulnerable,” he said. “For them, the situation is dire.”
Mahlo says that some Holocaust survivors in Ukraine refuse to set foot in Germany because of their past. He is trying to find alternatives to them, some fleeing to Poland, Romania, even Israel.
“You can re-injury survivors,” Mahlo said. “But we want them to feel safe and not feel left out like they did in the beginning,” when most Germans look the other way and do nothing to protect Jews and other vulnerable people. from National Socialism.
German and Ukrainian groups are working together to evacuate Holocaust survivors
Mahlo said his team was able to bring about 50 Holocaust survivors in Ukraine to Germany in the past few weeks, which would not have been possible without the help of the Jewish Distribution Commission. a humanitarian aid organization in Ukraine.
JDC’s Pini Miretski says having an existing network of care providers has helped them identify and evacuate Holocaust survivors, many of whom are in poor health. “What works as part of a normal routine works well in an emergency,” says Miretski.
As for Tartakovskaya, she said that without the kindness of her neighbors, she would have died. They were the ones who alerted JDC that she was in need.
“I live alone, I have no one. My whole family has long been buried in cemeteries in different cities,” she said. “But thanks to strangers, I escaped Irpin. My neighbors didn’t abandon me; they took me with them.”
Tartakoyskaya’s phone rings. Remarkably, it was her former neighbors, calling to wish her a happy birthday – something Tartakoyskaya believes she is making her mark on simply because of them and the institutions that brought her there. Berlin. The neighbors are still in Ukraine, she said, and they insist they are safe for now.
Tartakovskaya said training in gymnastics at a young age and playing chess all her life helped her become physically and mentally resilient. She was three years old when she first fled the war. As difficult as having to be a refugee again, especially in old age, she knows she is one of the lucky ones.
Julia Nesterenko contributed to this story from Berlin.
