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During World War II, thousands of Moldovan Jews were imprisoned in the Obodovka ghetto, located in the Romanian-occupied part of Ukraine. Unlike the areas under German control where Jews faced systematic extermination, survival rates were marginally higher under Romanian occupation, as soldiers there did not pursue mass executions with bullets. Despite this, most of the ghetto's inhabitants succumbed to starvation and disease during the harsh first winter. Journalist Julie Masis captures this lesser-known chapter of the Holocaust through the memories of her grandfather Shlomo Masis, a survivor who lived to the remarkable age of 102. His recollections reveal stories of resilience, including how some Ukrainians aided the Jews in the ghetto. Masis also delves into a poignant family legend about a German medic who reportedly fell in love with her Jewish grandmother. This narrative sheds light on both the horrors and the unexpected human connections that emerged during one of history's darkest periods.
"How My Grandfather Stole a Shoe and Survived the Holocaust in Ukraine is an exquisite memoir – and a model of how to write one. That is, be modest; collect any story you can get about or by the subject; if the tales have discrepancies, question them; provide the context of the recollections’ retellings; do some research, but don’t let that material block your readers’ sight of the memoir’s star."
—Bob Blaisdell, Russian Life Page
“Masis is a journalist, and she reports the atrocities and cruelty of the Nazis and their allies without adding commentary or expressing outrage. She recognizes that the details deliver an impact without embellishment. The author writes that she rejected the idea of creating a novel out of these events, but she has a novelist’s eye for telling details.”
— Alex Troy, Jewish Book Council
"I loved the book. I admire the tone, unusual for the subject, and the author's gift for making the characters come alive, the way the author brings the past and present together."
— Laura Engelstein, Henry S. McNeil Professor Emerita of Russian History, Yale University
Professor Emerita of History, Princeton University
“A rich chronicle of intergenerational life lessons, reminiscent of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie.”
— Shelly Sanders, The Jerusalem Post
“Although an extensive literature exists on the Nazi death camps and Einsatzgruppen massacres in Eastern Europe, much less well-known is how the Holocaust unfolded in the Romanian-administered Transnistria Governate established in German-occupied Soviet Ukraine. Julie Masis has written a very readable account that seamlessly weaves together the horrific but surprisingly inspiring experiences of her deported Moldovan Jewish family members supplemented with details that she gathered from archival sources and on research trips to the region. In the process of making sense of fragmentary stories while marveling how her paternal grandparents managed to survive the war when thousands of fellow Jews perished from hunger, exploitation, and exposure, she has created a memorable narrative that is at once intimate and remarkably unsentimental—capturing how instances of barbaric cruelty, as well as unexpected acts of kindness, often made the difference between life and death.”
— Jars Balan, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta
"An unforgettable, beautifully written memoir. With the eye of an artist and precision of a seasoned journalist, Julie Masis takes us into Ukraine and Moldova under Romanian occupation during World War II. At the center of the story is her grandfather, Shlomo Masis, who as a young man survived the horrors of the Jewish ghetto and saved others with his courage, kindness, and grit. He lived to 102 to tell the story to his granddaughter. The book is an invaluable addition to Holocaust literature, shedding light on little-known events in Eastern Europe. Yet the book is much more than a historical record. It is about the creation of oral history and its transfer from one generation to the next: the gift of sharing and the art of listening. Julie Masis weaves her grandfather’s stories into a nuanced, layered, sensitive interpretation, informed by her bilingual, bicultural background and her remarkable talent to speak from the heart. Family photos and the images by Soviet artist Felix Lembersky add a rich context to the narrative. This outstanding book will reverberate for years to come."
— Yelena Lembersky, author of Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour
“A poignant and unexpected journey through memory and survival, Julie Masis's remarkable book unravels a deeply personal family narrative that transcends the typical Holocaust memoir. With delicate prose and remarkable honesty, Masis offers a rare and invaluable local Bessarabian perspective—a lens seldom explored in Holocaust literature—revealing the unique experiences of Jewish communities in this often-overlooked region. The book transforms her grandfather's extraordinary story of survival, centered around a single stolen shoe, into a profound meditation on resilience, human dignity, and the small, sometimes absurd moments of hope that punctuate human suffering. This intimate family story is both heartbreaking and unexpectedly humorous, providing readers with a nuanced, localized understanding of survival and remembrance that enriches our broader historical comprehension.”
— Irina ȘIHOVA, PhD Jewish History Museum of the Republic of Moldova, Director
One hundred candles
Introduction
PART ONE: GRANDPA
How the war started
The rug that hung on the wall
Thrown out of a moving train
The Zguritsa pogrom
The fruit trees that grew along the roads
How my grandfather stole a shoe
The bird that wanted to be free
How the youngest brother died
The airport and the hospital
The selection
Villages at dusk
The frozen bodies
The Nazi who rode a motorcycle
Why did Haim come back?
The unlucky wedding
Barefoot in the snow
Grandpa wants to go outside
Two buckets of potatoes and a broken bottle
If they didn’t have bread, they gave potatoes
Adam and Eve
How Grandpa saved his brother
Forced labor
How curiosity saved Grandpa
The collective farm
Not like Schindler
How I wore Grandpa’s sweatpants
The partisans who dressed up as Nazis
Visitors at the nursing home
The soldiers with feathers
Never too old to dance
How Grandpa milled grain
Have a good year
PART TWO: GRANDMA
From Romania to the Soviet Union
The ticket to America
The uncle who sold bagels
Ten years for telling a joke
The truck that came too late
Expelled from Soroca
Vertujani
The frostbitten feet
The German wallet
A conversation
The stolen bread
The fake email
Retaliation
An unexpected meeting
A love story in the ghetto?
Did Grandpa know?
The Red Cross
How Tsilia met Shlomo
The couple who got married in the ghetto
How the ghetto was liberated
Romania’s responsibility
How my grandparents got married
The bag that took the train
How Grandpa killed two Nazis
How the war ended
The drive home
PART THREE: GRANDDAUGHTER
How I was named
Odessa—“Keep moving, you are not a tree!”
On the road to Moldova
A visit to Zguritsa
Zguritsa before the war
The cow in the cemetery
The Roma capital of the world
Chisinau, the capital of Moldova
The trip to Obodovka
A Ukrainian classmate
The righteous among the nations
Back in Odessa
Chisinau in December
Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine
The synagogue of Orhei
Jewish prayers are closer to God’s ears
Crosses as Holocaust monuments
Holocaust Street
Chisinau in the summer
PART FOUR: AFTER THE WAR
The famine of 1947
How a poor man visited a rich man
Potato diplomacy
The free cookies
Without his grandparents
How the horse died
Yahrzeit
Childhood games
The Blue Suit
Showing disrespect
The horse-pulled sleigh
Antisemitism
The man who wanted to make my father blind
The only man in Zguritsa who had a car
How a tobacco factory cured Grandpa
The antenna
The most important thing in life
The matchmaker
Grandma’s letters
How my father got arrested in the cinema
How my father sent butter in the mail
The hospital on the way to America
How we came to America
How Grandpa got lost
Grandpa’s trip to Israel
Why Grandpa didn’t learn to drive
Why Grandpa didn’t remarry
Grandpa’s sunglasses
The upcoming birthday
How to communicate without words
The interview
The great-grandfather who had one leg
One hundred and a half
Language
Grandpa’s lost address book
Romanian citizenship
Ancestors at a dinner party
Acknowledgements