Ukraine war: Holocaust survivor aged 91 among Mariupol’s civilian dead – reportson April 20, 2022 at 5:29 pm

An elderly Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust has died in the siege of Mariupol, her daughter told the Chabad.org news site.

Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova, 91, was sheltering without water in a freezing basement when she died on 4 April.

More than 80 years ago she had hidden in a cellar during Mariupol’s Nazi occupation.

This time she was taking shelter from Russian forces who have bombarded the city and cut off essential supplies.

“Mama didn’t deserve such a death,” her daughter Larissa told Chabad.org.

“There was no water, no electricity, no heat – and it was unbearably cold,” said Larissa, who was in the basement hiding with her mother. “There was nothing we could do for her. We were living like animals.”

Any moment spent outside the cellar was risky, with two snipers installed near the closest water sources, and the unrelenting bombardment from the sky.

“Every time a bomb fell, the entire building shook. My mother kept saying she didn’t remember anything like this during the Great Patriotic War [World War Two].”

Born in 1930, Vanda was just 10 years old when Nazi occupiers arrived in the port city and rounded up its Jewish population in October 1941.

Soldiers marched thousands of residents, including Vanda’s own mother, to a ditch where they were executed in a mass grave.

The little girl escaped by hiding in a basement when German SS officers arrived at her home to take away her mother.

She survived the rest of Mariupol’s Nazi occupation by spending the next two years in a hospital, which her father – who was not Jewish – had managed to get her checked in to.

Ms Obiedkova is the second Ukrainian Holocaust survivor known to have died since the Russian invasion began.

In March, a 96-year-old concentration camp survivor died when Russian forces shelled the apartment block he was living in, his relatives said.

“Vanda Semyonovna lived through unimaginable horrors,” Mariupol’s rabbi Mendel Cohen said.

“She was a kind, joyous woman, a special person who will forever remain in our hearts.”

Larissa and her surviving family members are now said to be in a safe location.

Mariupol’s mayor says 100,000 people remain trapped in the eastern port city, which has been under intense Russian bombardment since the beginning of the invasion. The BBC has been unable to verify the figure independently.

The city is a key strategic target for Moscow, which if captured would free up thousands of Russian troops to take part in offensives elsewhere and allow Russian forces in annexed Crimea to link directly with separatist forces in the east.

Despite multiple ultimatums from Russia, Ukrainian defenders have remained camped out in Mariupol’s massive Azovstal steel complex where they’ve vowed to fight to the end.