Raisa Valiushkevych said it felt strange to have found such a refuge in the land of her former persecutors.
She was forced from her home eight decades after first fleeing Ukraine to escape Nazi Germany's invasion. Retired teacher Raisa said it felt strange to have found such a refuge in the land of her former persecutors, but that she had been made to feel welcome and was grateful.
Holocaust survivor Raisa Valiushkevych, 98, who has recently escaped Russian bombing of her hometown Kyiv. She is one of around 50 Holocaust survivors that Jewish organisations have helped evacuate from Ukraine since Russia's invasion.capital city, which has been under almost constant attack since Vladimir PutinSpeaking of her first experience as a young refugee, she explained that she, her sister and her parents first fled Ukraine in 1941 by foot and then by train to Kazahkhastan. Raisa said: "Well, there was a war, the Germans were attacking, and we fled. There was a front and we fled. From the war, we were running from the war." They escaped the Nazi Holocaust which virtually wiped out Ukraine's pre-war Jewish population of about 1.5 million.Speaking from her new care home, she added: "I have found a second home here and I feel good here. I am well welcomed here. Thank you, I'm very grateful. And I don't even think about going back to Kyiv."He said: "Well, we had got ready generally speaking. So we started to get ready quietly. And then the next day we were called in the morning."We urgently needed to go or not to go, we had three hours to pack. So we thought about it and decided that we should go. So we got ready and went."If it wasn't for my mother, I probably would have stayed. But my mother had to be taken away because the bomb shelter was 300 meters away - by the time you got there, either the alarm would be over, or you would be hit.The mother and son accepted the offer of evacuation by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, a humanitarian group which has spent decades supporting Jews in Ukraine. An ambulance took her to the Polish border where she was transferred to another that took her to Frankfurt, with an overnight stay at a care home on the way.Back in Ukraine, reports of widespread atrocities carried out by Russian troops have begun to emerge in recent days. Putin has been accused of carrying out a genocide in Ukraine, after Ukraine's Ministry of Defence released images on Sunday showing what was left behind in the city of Bucha following a retreat of Russian forces. Footage showed bodies left lying in the street, some with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head. Ukrainian authorities have claimed 410 civilians were killed in Bucha and Irpin, with mass graves being dug for the victims. Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russian troops had instigated a "deliberate massacre" in Bucha and said they were "worse than ISIS". Journalists who have visited the area since the Russians retreat have said there is "clear evidence" of war crimes being left behind, including torture and rape.In the village of Motyzhyn, around 20 miles west of the city of Bucha, the mayor and her family were reportedly discovered in a mass grave. Ukraine's former ambassador to Austria Olexander Scherba said Olga Sukhenko was found buried with her husband and son.in a Facebook post after the bodies were discovered. “I want every mother of every Russian soldier to see the bodies of the killed people in Bucha, in Irpin, in Hostomel,” Zelensky said. “What did they do? Why were they killed?” “War crimes in Bucha and other cities during the Russian occupation will also be considered by the UN Security Council on Tuesday,” he added.
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