First-hand testimonies, preserved in their own words.

Igor Temper

A Stray Bullet in the Bombing

Igor's grandfather jumped from the train during a German air raid. A stray bullet found him as he ran, and he died in front of the boy.

Nina Uchitel, born 1938

Saved by Her Mother's Stubbornness

Nina's grandmother begged to keep her in Nevel for the summer. Nina's mother refused, and brought her back to Leningrad. Months later, the grandparents were among the eight hundred Jews shot in Nevel.

Ania Froim, born 1937

From Bucharest to an Arctic Barrack

Promised brotherhood and freedom, Ania's family of eight crossed from Romania into the Soviet Union during a 24-hour open border in 1940. By 1942 they were gathering frozen potatoes that fell from freight cars in the Urals.

Shloyme Shoikhet, born 1937

The Cart and the Frightened Horses

Two horses, panicked on a slope above a ravine, were stopped only by women in the field waving their kerchiefs. Then came the train to Tashkent, the open platform under rain, and a city refusing to take any more refugees.

Vladimir Yastrebskoy, born 1937

We Came Back to a Crater Where Our House Had Stood

Three and a half years old, Vladimir fled Rechytsa in Belarus on the last train east with his mother and five sisters. They returned at the end of the war to find a crater where their home had stood.

Evgenia Segal (b. 1939) and Maria Shaparny (b. 1937)

Torn From Childhood: Two Sisters, One War, and a Lifetime of Survival

Two sisters from Ukraine recall a peaceful childhood shattered on June 22, 1941, the loss of their father, and a life rebuilt in Israel.

Viktor Blekh, born 1941

A Hard Road to Survival

Viktor Blekh remembers being born in a half-destroyed Urals barrack, growing up hungry, and the disabled German POW who handed him his first piece of candy.

Galina Gurevich, born 1937

Bombs Over Minsk: A Jewish Mother’s Race to Save Her Children

Three days into the war, Galina’s mother fled the bombing of Minsk through the forest with three young children, eventually reaching Tajikistan.

Svetlana Galaganova, born 1941

From a Cattle Wagon to Jerusalem

Born three weeks before the invasion, Svetlana was carried by her mother across two months of bombings to a Urals dugout, and lives in Jerusalem today.

Daniel Veremeykin, born 1939

The train would start moving as bombs fell. Some made it back on. Some didn’t

From a clay-and-straw hut in the Sverdlovsk region, Daniel pieces together his earliest memories of escaping Roslavl on the last train out.

Anna Winetrub, born 1940

We survived the siege, betrayal, and a Nazi camp. My mother burned our documents, lied to stay alive, and saved us all

From besieged Leningrad to a brick-factory camp, Anna’s mother faced down a village informer and the Nazis to keep her two children alive.

Why I Started Light of Care

Founder Mike Levin on his parents’ Holocaust survival, the 130,000 survivors in Israel today, and why he built Light of Care.