"I never thought something like this could happen again." They survived the Holocaust and World War II — now they are fleeing Ukraine to Germany.
Alla Senelnikova says she would like to return to UkraineImage: Volker Witting/DW
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They came with whatever they could carry: a small suitcase, a travel bag, photos, an address book, a cellphone and all the memories of a very long life. Completely exhausted, three elderly women got out of the large Red Cross hospital bus; one was brought out on a stretcher by paramedics.
The passengers, Jewish Holocaust survivors who have fled Russia's invasion of Ukraine, are welcomed by care home director Thomas Böhlke — without a grand reception ceremony, without fanfare, "because everyone is just exhausted now," he said.
The women had three days of strenuous travel behind them, an odyssey to survive and leave behind the trauma of the second war they'd been through in their lives. Their temporary new home is now a residence for older people in Berlin, in Germany of all places. Its name translates to "Fulfilled Life."
Back in Ukraine, Liliya Vaksman had to hide in the basementImage: Privat
Liliya Vaksman immediately called her grandson Dan, who has been living and working in Berlin for several months. He rushed to the home to meet and hug her.
"I love you so much," Vaksman told Dan. Both were close to tears.
Vaksman was evacuated from the embattled city of Dnipro. As a child, she experienced Wold War II, persecution and being forced to flee home. And now, at 82, she has again.
"I'm just shocked by what's happening in Ukraine now," Vaksman said. "I just can't believe the same thing is happening again now as when I was a kid."
Ukrainian Holocaust survivors in Germany
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Surviving, somehow
In Ukraine, survival is becoming increasingly difficult for elderly people. Many can no longer cope by themselves: Water is scarce, food is lacking. Water and electricity often fail in war zones. Nurses and relatives can no longer come to their aid because Russian troops are dropping bombs on apartment buildings.
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"I basically regret that I'm still alive because this is now the second time I have to experience a war," said 90-year-old Alla Senelnikova, a retired doctor from the embattled city of Kharkiv.
In this situation, Jewish relief organizations such as the Jewish Claims Conference and the Central Jewish Welfare Agency wanted to quickly help Jewish Holocaust survivors leave Ukraine.
Some evacuations have to be done by medical servicesImage: Volker Witting/DW
The evacuation, in which German ministries, authorities and aid organizations are also involved, began this week. "To date, there have been about 30 evacuations, and another 20 are in the pipeline, so we're talking about 50 evacuations that we're currently carrying out," Aron Schuster told DW. He is the director of the Central Jewish Welfare Office and one of the coordinators of the relief effort.
About 400 people are in need of care, Schuster said. And help and assistance is to be offered to each of them should they want it. A total of about 10,000 Holocaust survivors are estimated to live in Ukraine, Schuster said. Quite a few of them survived Nazi concentration camps.
Germany's 'particular challenge'
The Holocaust survivors have fled an invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin and found sanctuary in Germany. In World War II, Russia was the liberator, and Germany's Adolf Hitler sought to erase Jewish life and culture; under his leadership the Nazis systematically murdered 6 million Jews.
For some Holocaust survivors, Schuster said, it is a "particular challenge" to emigrate to the country of the former perpetrators. But, given the current situation in Ukraine, most are just grateful that the opportunity to escape exists.
"She's just happy to be safe now," Larysa Sheherbyna said of her mother, who has dementia. Even during the Holocaust, Sheherbyna said, "there were people who hid Jews and risked their lives: It's not like everyone was a fascist in Germany during the Nazi years."
Schuster said fleeing to the state that committed the Holocaust was disorienting for someImage: Christian Thiel/imago images
The care home has taken in eight Holocaust survivors and some of their relatives. There really isn't any space left, Böhlke said, "but somehow we would also accommodate more people: We have a historic responsibility."
The survivors say they do not want to end up stranded in Germany. Most would like to go back to their homeland, to Ukraine.
For now, though, Dr. Senelnikova said she was just happy "that I was welcomed here so humanely." Her fellow travelers, who have also escaped war for the second time in their lives, agree with that.
This article has been translated from German.
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27. Numerous memorials across Germany ensure the millions of victims are not forgotten.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Schreiber
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
A large sculpture stands in front of Dachau. Located just outside Munich, it was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazi regime. Just a few weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power, it was used by the paramilitary SS Schutzstaffel to imprison, torture and kill political opponents of the regime. Dachau also served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi camps that followed.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Wannsee House
The villa on Berlin's Wannsee lake was pivotal in the planning of the Holocaust. Fifteen members of the Nazi government and the SS Schutzstaffel met here on January 20, 1942 to devise what became known as the "Final Solution," the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory. In 1992, the villa where the Wannsee Conference was held was turned into a memorial and museum.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
Located next to the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was inaugurated 60 years after the end of World War II on May 10, 2005, and opened to the public two days later. Architect Peter Eisenman created a field with 2,711 concrete slabs. An attached underground "Place of Information" holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Memorial to Persecuted Homosexuals
Not too far from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, another concrete memorial honors the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The 4-meter high (13-foot) monument, which has a window showing alternately a film of two men or two women kissing, was inaugurated in Berlin's Tiergarten on May 27, 2008.
Image: picture alliance/Markus C. Hurek
Documentation center on Nazi Party rally grounds
Nuremberg hosted the biggest Nazi party propaganda rallies from 1933 until the start of World War II. The annual Nazi Party congress, as well as rallies with as many as 200,000 participants, took place on the 11-square-kilometer (4.25-square-mile) area. Today, the unfinished Congress Hall building serves as a documentation center and a museum.
Image: picture-alliance/Daniel Karmann
German Resistance Memorial Center
The Bendlerblock building in Berlin was the headquarters of a military resistance group. On July 20, 1944, a group of Wehrmacht officers around Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg carried out an assassination attempt on Hitler that ultimately failed. The leaders of the conspiracy were summarily shot the same night in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. Today, it's the German Resistance Memorial Center.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Bergen-Belsen Memorial
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony was initially established as a prisoner of war camp before becoming a concentration camp. Prisoners too sick to work were brought here from other concentration camps, and many also died of disease. One of the 50,000 people killed here was Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who gained international fame after her diary was published posthumously.
Image: picture alliance/Klaus Nowottnick
Buchenwald Memorial
Located near the Thuringian town of Weimar, Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. From 1937 to April 1945, the National Socialists deported about 270,000 people from all over Europe to the camp and murdered 64,000 of them before the camp was liberated by US soldiers in 1945. The site now serves as a memorial to the victims.
Image: Getty Images/J. Schlueter
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims
Opposite the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, a park inaugurated in 2012 serves as a memorial to the 500,000 Sinti and Roma people killed by the Nazi regime. Around a memorial pool, the poem "Auschwitz" by Roma poet Santino Spinelli is written in English, Germany and Romani. "Gaunt face, dead eyes, cold lips, quiet, a broken heart, out of breath, without words, no tears," it reads.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'Stolpersteine' — stumbling blocks as memorials
In the 1990s, artist Gunter Demnig began the project to confront Germany's Nazi past. The brass-covered concrete cubes placed in front of the former homes of Nazi victims show their names, details about their deportation, and murder, if known. As of early 2022, some 100,000 "Stolpersteine" have been laid in over 25 countries across Europe. It's the world's largest decentralized Holocaust memorial.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Brown House in Munich
Right next to the "Führerbau," where Adolf Hitler had his office in Munich, was the headquarters of the Nazi Party, called the Brown House. A white cube now occupies the place where it once stood. In it, the "Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism" opened on April 30, 2015, 70 years after the defeat of the Nazi regime.
