feature story
On Yom HaShoah,
Ukrainian Jews
Grapple with
Identities at War
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
T Photos by Heather Ross
hough Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is an
Israeli memorial day of the 6 million Jewish lives lost in the
Holocaust, the day has become yet another opportunity for
those in the United States to mourn the tragedies of the Holocaust.

Ukrainian Holocaust survivors and refugees are mourning doubly
on this year’s Yom HaShoah, April 28: Th e holiday comes in tandem
with continued Russian attacks on Ukraine under Russian President
Vladimir Putin, who is not the fi rst totalitarian ruler to make waves
in Eastern Europe in the past hundred years.

But for families with recent memories of Soviet Union-era
antisemitism under Joseph Stalin, embracing a Ukrainian identity
in conjunction with a Jewish one, even in times of war, is proving
diffi cult.

As Bronislava Kerzhnerman, an 83-year-old Holocaust refugee
from Ukraine who lives in Philadelphia, lights a Yahrzeit candle
every year to remember lives lost, memories of her family in the
1940s being sent to barracks in a town outside of Siberia mix with
22 APRIL 28, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
news from her cousin in Kharkiv who had to evacuate an apartment
she had worked for years to aff ord.

“Th ey don’t look if it’s an adult or a child; they just kill,” Kerzhnerman
said about the similarities between Nazi and Soviet rule.

Kerzhnerman has only one photo from her childhood: a picture
her neighbor kept because it made her appear to look less Jewish.

When Kerzhnerman and her family left for Siberia, they didn’t
pack any additional clothing; Kerzhnerman’s mother thought the
war would be short-lived. Her grandfather fl ed with her brothers,
leaving Kerzhnerman’s mother to perform hard labor over an open
fi re.

When her mother was hospitalized with a severe burn injury,
Kerzhnerman was sent to an orphanage, which she repeatedly ran
away from, choosing to sit outside her mother’s hospital barrack and
nibble on rationed bread.

At one point, Kerzhnerman’s mother, aft er she recovered, was sent
to jail for allegedly speaking ill of Stalin.

Photos by Heather Ross
Ukrainian refugee and
Philadelphia resident Bronislava
Kerzhnerman looks at family
pictures. She emigrated from
Russia to the U.S. in 1987.




“I came to the court, and a lawyer
took me, and he said [to the judge],
‘Th is child does not have a father. Do
you want her to not have a mother as
well?’” Kerzhnerman said.

Her mother was later released from
jail. Th e family was able to resettle, and
Kerzhnerman, who lived in Moscow
with her husband for many years, came
to the U.S. in 1987, seven years aft er
her mother emigrated as part of the
refuseniks. Even aft er World War II, healing for
the victimized populations could not
begin. Lilia Miller, a KleinLife member
born in Kharkiv, immigrated to the
U.S. in 1997 aft er a lifetime of antisem-
itism that made her feel like her “dig-
nity was being diminished.”
“Th e last month when [we] already
knew that [we] were immigrating to
the United States, someone wrote on
[our] doors, ‘Get out of here,’ and a very
derogatory term for Jews,” Miller said
through an interpreter.

Miller and her family also endured
the Holocaust. Her father was an offi -
cer in the military and left to serve in
World War II, leaving Miller and her
sister under the care of her mother
and grandparents. Th e family had to
pause their evacuation in Tashkent,
Uzbekistan, aft er her sister got sick.

The family eventually fled to
Kazakhstan, where they stayed until
1948, but when they returned to
Kharkiv — aft er Miller’s father and
grandfather died in the war from hun-
ger — a non-Jewish family was living
on their property. Th e family refused
to give the home back.

But for many Ukrainian refugees,
coming to America didn’t off er initial
comfort, and assimilation to the new
culture was diffi cult.

Kerzhnerman was a practicing den-
tist in Russia, but aft er immigrating
to the U.S., her dental license was no
longer valid. She had to return to den-
tal school in New Jersey, but only had
enough money to aff ord to become a
hygienist. Miller’s daughter had her pay her
way through school by working as a
dishwasher during the day and study-
ing at night.

While Kerzhnerhman and Miller
eventually came to feel at home in the
U.S., time has not healed the wounds
Ukraine has left on other refugees.

Feeling protective of a Jewish iden-
tity has sometimes been at odds with
embracing a Ukrainian identity.

Alla Gopshtein, a Doylestown-based
3G Philly member, immigrated to the
U.S. more than 30 years ago from
her hometown, Kyiv. Her grandparents
who survived the Holocaust moved to
the area a month later.

While Gopshtein will admit that her
blonde hair and blue eyes protected her
from some antisemitism in the Soviet
Union, her father, with darker features,
received the brunt of hatred against
Jews. “My dad, especially, and my mom
— I don’t think the way they see it,
Ukraine was good to them,” Gopshtein
said. “If you ask them, they say they’re
Jewish; they’re not Ukrainian.”
Th is sentiment is shared among
other Ukrainian refugees, KleinLife
President and CEO Andre Krug, who
is from Kharkiv, noticed.

“I saw Jews who were still anti-
Ukrainian, who still support Putin because
they say their parents or grandparents were
executed by Ukrainians during the Second
World War,” Krug said.

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