“This is my grandmother. She was murdered at Chapter Yar.” : Svetlana Petrovski was 5 years old when her grandmother and aunt were murdered, as more than 30,000 Jews during World War II in the midst of downtown Kiev, during what is presented the first major Holocaust massacre by bullets.
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On Tuesday, the sixth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a Russian missile hit the Kiev TV tower, which is located not far from Babi Yar, a ravine where the Nazis shot dead more than 30,000 Jews in two days in 1941. This place is today an important place of memory. Svetlana has no words to describe how she feels. “The Russian army bombarded with missiles this place, Babi Yar, where 30,000 Jews were murdered in 1941. It’s horrible, it drives me crazy. It is not possible. I am very angry.“, she says in a worn voice, in English.
Since the start of the war, Svetlana has spent most of her time in her neighborhood bomb shelter. Moments that she already experienced when she was a child. “The first time was when I was 5 years old, it was in Russia during the war. And the second time is now. I spend about 20 hours a day there. I have to take my canes. When the sirens start sounding to tell us to go to the shelter, I can’t move quickly.“, she laments.
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Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin, two men at the origin of this suffering almost 80 years apart: “History repeats itself, but in a crueler way, in my opinion. Because Hitler came from another country, from another culture, he spoke another language. Today is worse. They are our brothers. We learned Russian songs. We know their poets. Some of us grew up with Russian culture. From my point of view, what is happening today is much worse.“
Today, at 87, this retired history teacher is following the situation very closely and does not hide her concern: “Putin wants to take Ukraine and reattach it to his country. He does not want our country to exist. He decided that Ukraine was not a nation. He considers this land to be Russian. He hates Ukraine because it’s a free country. He repeatedly tried to restore the Soviet Union, the great Soviet empire. But he failed.“, she deciphers.
Svetlana is convinced of the victory of the Ukrainian forces, but fears a long and deadly war.
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