Bringing Love and Care to Luba

The Fellowship  |  April 16, 2025

Luba’s name means “love.” However, this sweet 86-year-old and Holocaust survivor has experienced very little love during her life, especially in her senior years.

Luba’s childhood was robbed from her by the Holocaust. Her father was taken away by the Nazis, leaving her mother to care for eight small children. Some of those siblings, as well as many relatives, were murdered by the Nazis in the slaughter of more than 30,000 Jews at Babi Yar, a ravine outside Kyiv.

And now, all these decades later, Luba still lives a hard life. She lives in a remote village in Ukraine with no running water or indoor bathroom. So, in the bitter winter, when the temperature is below zero, Luba must go to the well to pump water to drink or use the hut outside for a bathroom – both a long walk from her home.

And as the war in Ukraine continues, she cries for all the families being torn apart, and for her own grandson who fought in the war but was injured and hospitalized.

Luba rarely receives visitors, so when we arrived with a food box and a blanket, this lonely woman burst into tears of gratitude. Overwhelmed with emotion, Luba hugged us tightly and kissed the hands of The Fellowship volunteer who brought her the food box.

Thanks to the support from The Fellowship, Luba’s situation has improved. She has moved into slightly better housing and has ongoing food support and winter assistance from The Fellowship. She tells us that without our support over the last several years, she doesn’t think she’d be alive.

“I survive thanks to my faith in the kindness of people,” says Luba. “The Fellowship takes care of me during difficult times of war in Ukraine and gives me the strength to continue. I thank all the wonderful people who do this sacred work and bring food to people like me who have no food. When everyone else forgot about me, the people from The Fellowship came to visit me again.”