Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova, who was ten years old when Nazi Germany conquered Mariupol, managed to flee the family house by hiding in the basement when the SS arrived, but her mother was taken away.
According to Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Mendel Cohen, who oversees the area’s lone synagogue, she married in the city after the war and was an active part of the Jewish community.
In the 1990s, Obiedkova gave a video testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation about her Holocaust experiences.
Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova, 91, was rendered immobile and unable to leave the cramped space beneath a heating supply store where she and her family took refuge.
Larissa, her daughter, said she compared their suffering to the Nazi takeover of the city in 1941 in her final days.
Larissa said; “Mama didn’t deserve such a death, there was no water, no electricity, no heat and it was unbearably cold. “Every time a bomb fell, the entire building shook. My mother kept saying she didn’t remember anything like this during the [Second World War].”
Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova Cause of Death
Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova died in Mariupol after spending weeks hiding from Russian bombardment in a basement with no heating or running water.
She passed away on April 4, 2022. According to Chabad, Larissa buried her mother in a local park before fleeing with her family.
