A Miracle for Arkady
The Fellowship | May 9, 2023
“I wake up at 6 every morning and exercise for an hour and a half.” That’s one of 93-year-old Arkady’s secrets to staying strong and independent after surviving so much during his life. But the main reason this Holocaust survivor is still here is because of God’s love.
Eleven years old when WWII began, Arkady remembers fleeing his hometown in Ukraine with his Jewish family. The family evacuated with the factory where Arkady’s father worked. “The authorities put factory equipment on proper, secured carriages,” Arkady recalls. “Workers with their families were offered nothing but open carriages which didn’t even have walls.”
During the evacuation, Nazi planes bombed the train car in front of Arkady’s. His mother covered his eyes from seeing a mother and child on fire in front of him. Left in the middle of nowhere, the family ended up making their way to Siberia, the small boy fighting illness along the way. “I survived by a miracle!” Arkady says.
After returning to Ukraine after the war, life under Soviet rule was little better. Facing constant anti-Semitism made Arkady learn to be tough, something that has stayed with him throughout his life.
Making aliyah with his wife of 40 years, Arkady lost her several years ago, and is now a lonely widower in Israel. But he’s not alone, thanks to God’s love, and thanks to gifts from Fellowship friends around the world who provide him with food, warmth, and companionship.
“I like to be independent,” Arkady says. And it’s thanks to your gifts that this precious child of God can be independent at the age of 93.