Natella, a 95 year old Holocaust survivor, was literally starving to death. She was living in a flat with broken windows and no heat or electricity. Even more horrific is that Natella’s neighbour, her own son, has disowned her because his wife hates Jews. The two of them had been verbally attacking her daily yelling, “die Jew”, and, “I can’t wait until you die”, while watching her slowly starve. This poor sweet woman has endured unimaginable pain!
When Natella was a young girl, hidden by neighbours during the Holocaust, the Nazis rounded up her entire family and brutally killed them all. She was forced into a life of suppression as the Soviet regime stripped away her Jewish heritage. When the Soviet Union began to collapse, she lived a life of immense poverty, often going for days without food. And sadly, over the past year before we learned about her, she was not only starving to death but also being verbally and mentally abused by her own son and daughter-in-law. Even after everything she has been through, this brave woman refuses to give up as she fights to survive.
…“she was not only starving to death but also being verbally and mentally abused by her own son and daughter-in-law.”…
Natella is now in our Senior Care Services programme in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, where we are taking care of all of her needs as our social workers spend quality time with her so that she knows she is not alone. It is true that she is just too frail to make the move to Israel at this stage in her life, but it is not too late for us to help her rise up as a person and also help her to rise up to God.
