Ukrainian Holocaust survivors flee war again — this time to Germany

Excellent share from NPR news shipmate PO1 William "Chip" Nagel

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The women are Ukrainian Holocaust survivors who fled the Nazis as children. Now, in old age, they had to go on the run again — this time from Russians.

A major evacuation effort is underway to bring Ukrainian Holocaust survivors to safety. Dozens have recently arrived in Germany, the country they once feared.

Among the Ukrainians struggling to flee from Russian attacks, housebound senior citizens, often unable to get to shelters, 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 has reached Germany is Sonya Leibovna Tartakovskaya, a retired seamstress from Irpin, near Kyiv. Today happens to be her 83rd birthday.

Tartakovskaya says she's immensely relieved to be in this retirement home, located near a large Russian-speaking community. Ukrainian authorities say they've found evidence in her hometown of Russian atrocities carried out against civilians.

"For 20 days, I was without gas, without water, without light," Tartakovskaya says. "When the war started, I weighed 100 pounds — my normal weight. When I arrived here, I weighed almost half that."...

90 year olds born in 1932 would young teens before the war ended. An 83 year old would be born in 39. Both certainly old enough at that time to remember the horrors even if they did not totally understand then at the time. No one should have to live through something like that, and surely not twice!
We have a mysterious relative on the maternal side, surname of Vroman, who left from Germany to arrive in America in 1850. But I don't think she was German. She was the most recent arrival of my ancestors and apparently a child, at least not yet an adult, who may have arrived alone. Neither my cousin, who also was doing genealogy research, nor myself have been able to learn more about her. There was ongoing persecution in Russia at the time which hit a high mark in the 1880s and later, which resulted in arrival of increasing more Russian immigrants to our shores. Have wondered if she is a survivor from her family of earlier persecution. To imagine records might survive in war torn regions seems a folly.