Holocaust survivors whose family died at the Babyn Yar massacre have demanded Russia withdraw from Ukraine in a moving plea recorded from a Kyiv bomb shelter.
An elderly woman identifying herself as Romana Valentyna Yosypivna says: “Putin! Take away your army! Get out from Ukraine!”
She says she was born in Ukraine in 1941, and that she faced the bombing of Kyiv as a child.
“My relatives died in Babyn Yar,” she adds.
The second speaker, Oleg Yakovych, says: “I was born in Kyiv in 1940. My relatives died in Babyn Yar in 1941.
“Now I am hiding in a bomb shelter and I am under enemy’s bombs. Putin get out from Kyiv and from all of Ukraine.”
Another woman who gives her name as Lukash Tamara Oleksiivna says she was born in 1939 and lived in Kiev before WW2 started.
“In June, during the war, all my Jewish relatives from my mother’s side were taken to Babyn Yar. All of them died there,” she goes on.
"We want peace"
— The Jewish Chronicle (@JewishChron) March 3, 2022
Ukrainian Holocaust survivors sheltering in a basement in Kyiv record a message to Vladimir Putin pic.twitter.com/bkm5Xpi39e
In 1941, 33,00 Jews were killed at the Babyn Yar ravine on the outskirts of Kiev over two days by Nazi occupiers.
The site is now a memorial, but was damaged by a Russian missile attack on Tuesday in which five people died.
President Volodymyr Zelensky - who is himself Jewish and lost several family members in the Shoah - was caught on video first hearing of the attack.
Turning to face a member of his government he asked: “Now? Babyn Yar?”
After a moment of silence, Mr Zelensky added: “That... is Russia. Congratulations.”
In the Kyiv bomb shelter, Ms Oleksiivna added: “Today I am also in Kyiv and this year it’s a horror.
“Putin, I wish you to die. Leave us, leave us, bastard. We don’t want to see you! We don’t want to hear you! We want peace!”
The elderly crowd behind her add definitely and in union: “We want peace!”
