Odesa resident Roman Shvartsman, who will turn 89 this year and who survived a Nazi camp, spoke in the Bundestag and thanked Germany for its assistance in Ukraine’s current fight against russian aggression and asked to strengthen this support.
“putin is trying to destroy us as a nation, just as Hitler tried to destroy the Jews during World War II. Hitler wanted to kill me because I am a Jew, now putin is trying to kill me because I am Ukrainian,” Shvartsman said.
The pensioner noted that since February 24, 2002, russia has been bombing Ukrainian cities, the power system, and civilians. “Our lives and our freedom are again under threat… I see suffering and destruction again,” said Schvartsman.
He recounted how a russian missile hit his home in Odesa on December 29, 2024. Mr. Roman and his wife, who were surviving the attack in the basement, did not recognize their apartment on the 10th floor, where “everything was destroyed.”
The survivor of the Berschad ghetto, who now serves as the chairman of the Ukrainian Association for Jewish Concentration Camp and Ghetto Survivors, offered a powerful message of resistance: “I was in the ghetto, I saw the devil. And I say, we are really overestimating him. His power is not greater than the power we ascribe to him.”
