Faces of The Fellowship: Ala

The Fellowship  |  May 31, 2018

Though Ala has fond childhood memories of her mother teaching her how to bake challah and matzah, she has dark memories as well. Ala and her family survived the Holocaust by hiding from the Nazis in the forest just outside their Ukrainian town.

“We didn’t leave the forest for days. We had no food,” she says. “Other Jews in our village were taken to the train cars. When they shot the Jews, we heard the shots in the forest.”

After the war, Ala got married, but her husband died soon after their son and daughter were born. “My daughter died, and so did my grandson,” Ala says, sadly. “My son now lives very far away in Russia.”

After working her whole life on a collective farm, Ala, now 84, receives a monthly pension of roughly $56, not nearly enough to eke out even her modest living.

When The Fellowship learned that she desperately needed food, medicine, and warm winter clothes, we started delivering monthly aid packages. Ala considers The Fellowship representative who makes these deliveries like family, as you can clearly see in the photo above. “Thank you! Thank you!” Ala exclaims. “I know I will survive with God’s help and yours.”

Learn how you can help impoverished elderly in need, like Ala, receive the lifesaving care they desperately need.