Iya (92), who fled the Nazis in 1941, forced to leave her Kyiv home again because of war

“Earlier, the Germans were the enemy. But I don’t understand the Russians. They think they are defending their country, they are defending themselves, but they came to us. They have destroyed Kharkiv, what do they need it for?”

Ms Rudzitskaya slowly goes through family photos she took from Kyiv along with some books, documents and basic necessities. She squints her eyes, trying to find her young self in the pictures. Her sight is failing her, but her memories are still vivid.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in early July 1941, she woke up to the sound of bombs. As a young pioneer, the mass youth organisation of the Soviet Union, she was tasked with delivering summons to young men to join the war. But her father knew that as Jews they were no longer safe in Kyiv.

“He said in panic that we have no choice but to leave. But it was already almost impossible. In July the panic was terrible, everyone who could was fleeing: the Communists, Jews and all the others,” Ms Rudzitskaya said.

Her parents took her and her brother and fled first to Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. From there, they travelled across the Soviet Union to Tashkent, the capital of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, nearly 3,800km from their hometown.

Ms Rudzitskaya remembers they left Kharkiv on September 21. On September 29, the Babyn Yar massacre took place. Within two days, the Nazis murdered 33,771 Ukrainian Jews, one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. Today marks International Holocaust Memorial Day, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Ms Rudzitskaya’s family returned to Kyiv after the war. She found a job as a typographist, got married and had her only son, Artur (54).

After passing through 10 different apartments since fleeing Kyiv, Ms Rudzitskaya and her son now have a flat for three months. From the window they see a Russian flag hanging from the Russian consulate.

She has a grave waiting for her in Kyiv, she said, next to her parents. “There is even a plaque with my name. You just need to add the last digits and everything, everything will be in order.”

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