Nottinghamshire Holocaust survivor 'lived every day in fear'

Malka Levine, from Beeston, recalls hiding underneath the floor of a house in a Nazi ghetto

A Holocaust survivor has recalled hiding from the Nazis in a pit through the winter after escaping a ghetto during World War Two.

Malka Levine, 84, is among the very few Jews who survived the mass killings in a border town in western Ukraine.

Ms Levine, aged three at the time of the Nazi invasion, has documented her childhood experiences in a new book.

"We were living every day in fear surrounded by shootings," said Ms Levine from Beeston, Nottinghamshire.

'Save the children'

Her father, Mosha Fishman, left the improvised shelter in search for some food before being shot alongside 15,000 other Jews in September 1942.

His last words to the frightened family are ingrained in Ms Levine's memory as "the vow" that kept them alive.

"We were hiding under the floorboards. We stayed there for three days," she said.

"We had no food, no water, so my dad decided to get up and bring us something to eat and some water.

"But we heard somebody coming up the stairs, and it was too late for my dad to jump back.

"He told my mum 'save the children'. And he shut the door.

Ms Levine wrote her first book throughout lockdown

"When we came out from hiding, my mother suddenly became a widow. My grandmother lost a son. And we became fatherless."

She added: "We were always sad. I had no childhood. There was nothing to be happy about."

Ms Levine estimated that only 30 adults and nine children survived out of more than 20,000 members of the Jewish community established in Volodymyr-Volynskyi before World War Two.

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She recalled queueing to be shot alongside other families, before a German Wehrmacht officer saved them from death.

When they finally managed to escape the ghetto, they ended up hiding in a Ukrainian family's barn.

"They dug a pit in the ground, and that is where we lived for nine months, through the winter," Ms Levine added.

They came out of hiding on 22 July 1944, to a war-torn town and their "shattered" home.

As one of the nine children who survived the massacre, Ms Levine has compiled her memories in a book called A Mother's Courage, which was written throughout the Covid-19 lockdown and is being launched on 7 September.

"I am not the story - I am the teller," she said.

"I hope this is something that people will learn from."