You Are Her Only Friend

The Fellowship  |  May 10, 2022

Life for a Jew in Ukraine has never been easy. Dolores knows this firsthand. She’s known this for every one of her 82 years in the country’s capital, Kiev.

When asked about her earliest years, Dolores looks off into the distance. Although she was young, she still remembers the traumatic events of the Holocaust…

Nazis invading Ukraine, rounding up Jews and murdering them — simply because of their faith.

Her father being conscripted into the Red Army and being sent to the front, where he was killed.

Her mother and grandparents bundling her up and whisking the family away in the dead of night. First to far-off Kazakhstan, then even further away, to Uzbekistan. Always on the run. Always hungry. Always afraid for their lives.

After the war’s end, the family headed back home. Dolores’ grandfather died on the long journey. And when they returned to Kiev, they found their humble apartment destroyed. Their entire block, part of the city’s once-tightknit Jewish community, lay pillaged, in ruins.

Now, all these decades later, Dolores is still in Kiev, having survived the Holocaust and communist rule. She still has her memories, although she has little else. But Dolores has Fellowship friends like you, who provide her with food, with a homecare worker, and with hope.

“I’m very grateful to The Fellowship for providing me with help,” Dolores says. “I am totally dependent on it. Without you I would have nothing to eat. My life would be impossible. The Fellowship is the only friend left in my life.”

Your best gift can bring food and friendship to a forgotten Holocaust survivor like Dolores.