Holocaust survivor Vanda Obiedkova has died in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, becoming the second survivor of the World War II Jewish genocide known to have died in Russia's nearly two-month war.
Obiedkova perished in besieged Mariupol at age 91 on April 4, according to the Judaism website Chabad.org. She spent the last two weeks of her life immobile inside a freezing basement hiding from Russia's siege.
At the age of 10 in October 1941, Obiedkova witnessed Nazi forces entering her native Mariupol and arresting her mother, who was among thousands of Jews executed on the city’s outskirts. SS soldiers later detained Obiedkova, but family friends managed to convince them that she was Greek.
“Mama loved Mariupol, she never wanted to leave,” Obiedkova’s daughter Larissa said after fleeing the city.
Larissa and her husband buried Obiedkova under nonstop shelling in a public park near the Sea of Azov.
Obiedkova is the second Holocaust survivor known to have died during Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, which is nearing its two-month mark.
On March 18, Borys Romanchenko, a survivor of Buchenwald and three other Nazi concentration camps, was killed by an alleged Russian air strike in Kharkiv. He was 96.
Romanchenko’s granddaughter Yulia said his house was “completely burned down” in the shelling of the Saltivka residential district.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 with the stated aim of “denazifying and demilitarizing” its pro-Western neighbor.
Ukrainian officials have pointed to Romanchenko and Obiedkova’s deaths in questioning those aims.
Russia has shifted its stated war goals to the less ambitious task of “liberating” eastern Ukraine's pro-Moscow separatist territories, which it recognized as independent republics shortly before the invasion.
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