'I'm not scared anymore' - WWII survivor says of war in Ukraine

Record ID: 1671616

  • Title: 'I'm not scared anymore' - WWII survivor says of war in Ukraine
  • Date: 6th May 2022
  • Summary: KYIV, UKRAINE (MAY 5, 2022) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WORLD WAR TWO SURVIVOR, YURII FUKS, WALKING INTO BABYN YAR MEMORIAL (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) WORLD WAR TWO SURVIVOR, 86, YURII FUKS, SAYING: “Until the very last moment, I did not believe that there would be a war. Probably because I had seen war with my own eyes. I had seen the destruction of the post-war country, completely ruined. Only stoves remained in the villages. People lived in dugouts and cooked food on stoves that stood there as monuments of destruction. I could not believe this.” FUKS’S FACE WITH MENORAH MONUMENT IN BACKGROUND (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) WORLD WAR TWO SURVIVOR, 86, YURII FUKS, SAYING: “I remember how I cried of hunger, because I wanted to eat all the time. Even when I was in an orphanage where food was always available - it wasn't not just me - we would still sneak into the pigsty and steal potatoes from the pigs, potatoes which were boiled and fed to them. I remember the feeling of hunger and will probably remember it until the end of my days.” FUKS AT MEMORIAL (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) WORLD WAR TWO SURVIVOR, 86, YURII FUKS, SAYING: “You can believe me, I'm not scared anymore, because I’m at that age where all sort of things have happened in my life. When the Germans were here, I was five years old. I was not afraid then because I could not rationalise and comprehend what was happening. After the war, I had to make my own way and make my own decisions. I raised myself in a way that I have to accept reality. We did not run to the bomb shelters.” FUKS AT MEMORIAL (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) WORLD WAR TWO SURVIVOR, 86, YURII FUKS, SAYING: “War means destruction and death. The weather is so wonderful right now, such a beautiful country, such good, hard-working people, and they are dying. Men, women and children, husbands and brothers are dying. So we live in hope that this will end soon.” VARIOUS OF FUKS WALKING TOWARDS MENORAH MONUMENT
  • Embargoed: 20th May 2022 08:51
  • Keywords: Babyn Yar ravine German troops Nazi troops Russia World War Two massacre
  • Location: KYIV, UKRAINE
  • City: KYIV, UKRAINE
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Europe,Military Conflicts
  • Reuters ID: LVA001604105052022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:Yurii Fuks was five years old when German troops entered Kyiv in September 1941. Raised as an orphan after losing all of his family during World War Two, Fuks told Reuters he did not expect to witness another war in his lifetime.
    “Until the very last moment, I did not believe that there would be a war. Probably because I saw the war with my own eyes,” the 86-year-old, walking around a World War Two memorial in Kyiv on Thursday (May 5).
    Fuks, who is of Jewish origin, says he still has vivid memories of how his grandparents being taken by Nazi police to the Babyn Yar ravine, they did not come back.
    Fuks’s mother and sister were later taken by the German police too. Fuks escaped a similar fate by staying with neighbours, who hid him away.
    The Babyn Yar massacre marked the start of Ukraine's Holocaust in which a pre-war Jewish population of about 1.5 million was virtually wiped out. The mass killing, carried out mainly by automatic gunfire between September 29 and 30 in 1941 in the ravine, killed a total of 33,771 Jewish men, women and children.
    On February 24, when Russia started a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, Fuks was determined to remain in Kyiv, his hometown. The World War Two survivor, who now has great grandchildren, said he was more worried about his family than his own safety.
    “You can believe me, I'm not scared anymore, because I’m at that age where all sort of things happened in my life.”
    “After the war, I had to make my own way and make my own decisions. I raised myself in a way that I have to accept reality. We did not run to the bomb shelters.”
    Fuks said he lives in hope that the war will end soon.
    (Production: Leonardo Benassatto, Margaryta Chornokondratenko)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2022. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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