Yevgeny Khaldei
Jewish Couple Who Had Miraculously Escaped Deportation to Auschwitz in Newly Liberated Budapest 1945
“…Suddenly I saw a [Jewish] husband and wife walking along the street… with Stars [of David on their clothes]. I was stunned: the city had been liberated but they were still wearing those stars. I approached them. I was wearing a black leather coat and they became… frightened… taking me for an SS-man. I approached… and said to them … in a mixture of Yiddish and German, ‘Wait’ and I tore off the Star of David off the man and then off the woman. They again became frightened so I said to them.… 'Alles gut … ich bin auch a yid. Sholom aleichem’ [everything is o.k. I am a Jew too. Peace to you]. When I said 'Sholom aleichem’ the women burst into tears and fell on into arms. They told me how afraid they had been, how awful it was for them to constantly wear this Star of David.…”
Yevgeny Khaldei, from an interview with Belgian television, 1997
Yevgeny Khaldei - Nazi Butcher War Criminals on Trial, Nuremberg, Germany 1946
“I can forgive, but I cannot forget. My father and two sisters were thrown alive into a coal pit (and killed), with 70,000 others. That was the Germans.”
Yevgeny Khaldei, on the murder of his Jewish family in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.
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