The elderly and fragile, Ukraine's Holocaust survivors are escaping war once more, on a remarkable journey that turns the world they knew on its head: They are seeking safety in Germany
Galina Ploschenko, a Holocaust survivor from Ukraine, in her room at the AWO senior care center in Hanover, Germany, April 25, 2022. A rescue mission organized by two Jewish groups is trying to get Holocaust survivors out of the war wrought by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Lena Mucha/The New York Times)
HANNOVER, Germany — Their earliest memories are of fleeing bombs or hearing whispers about massacres of other Jews, including their relatives. Sheltered by the Soviet Union, they survived.
Now elderly and fragile, Ukraine’s Holocaust survivors are escaping war once more, on a remarkable journey that turns the world they knew on its head: They are seeking safety in Germany.
For Galina Ploschenko, 90, it was not a decision made without trepidation.
“They told me Germany was my best option. I told them, ‘I hope you’re right,’ ” she said.
Ploschenko is the beneficiary of a rescue mission organized by Jewish groups, trying to get Holocaust survivors out of the war wrought by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
©2019 New York Times News Service