‘Putin, I Hope You Die!’ Ukrainian Holocaust Survivors Send Video Message to ‘Bastard’ Russian Dictator to ‘Leave Us Alone!’

 

Holocaust survivors in Ukraine recorded a blunt video message for the Russian dictator who has invaded their country, calling Vladimir Putin a “bastard” and ordering him to get out of Ukraine.

CNN Newsroom’s Jim Acosta played a clip from the video recorded by women at the Kyiv Center for Jewish Eldery, along with the following English transcript:

Putin, withdraw your army and get out from Ukraine!

We want peace! We want peace!

In June (1942) the war started. All my relatives on my mom’s side are Jews. Jews were taken to Babyn Yar. Everybody was killed there. Today I am again in Kyiv. But it is this year. It’s a horrifying monstrosity. Putin, I hope you die! Leave us alone, you bastard!

The woman’s mention of Babyn Yar refers to the Holocaust memorial site near a TV tower in Kyiv, where at least five people died in a Russian strike at the beginning of this month. The monument honors the memory of the more than 30,000 Jews who were murdered by the Nazis there in a two-day period in September 1941.

Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, the chief rabbi of Ukraine, had helped build the assisted living home where the women in the video were living, with the help of a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Bleich told Acosta these women all spoke with “a lot of emotion” and described the story another one had shared:

One of them, when I spoke to her the evening previously, she told me, she said “God made me live long enough to see two wars. I thought one would be enough. I didn’t think I would ever have to in my life live to see another war.” She said that when she was just hoping that television tower, or the bomb that fell on Babyn Yar, will wake up the dead from Babyn Yar and have them come up and fight against Putin.

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Sarah Rumpf joined Mediaite in 2020 and is a Contributing Editor focusing on politics, law, and the media. A native Floridian, Sarah attended the University of Florida, graduating with a double major in Political Science and German, and earned her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the UF College of Law. Sarah's writing has been featured at National Review, The Daily Beast, Reason, Law&Crime, Independent Journal Review, Texas Monthly, The Capitolist, Breitbart Texas, Townhall, RedState, The Orlando Sentinel, and the Austin-American Statesman, and her political commentary has led to appearances on television, radio, and podcast programs across the globe. Follow Sarah on Threads, Twitter, and Bluesky.