90-year-old historian and former prisoner of a Nazi ghetto Boris Zabarko injured in Russian attack on Kyiv

In Kyiv, on the night of July 3, 2026, during a massive Russian strike, a 90-year-old Ukrainian historian and former Nazi ghetto prisoner, Boris Zabarko, was injured. This was reported by the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, Moshe Reuven Asman, specifying that missiles hit the house where Zabarko lives, and shrapnel cut his body.

Zabarko’s story has become symbolic and painful: a person who survived the Holocaust was once again under the blow of war. Asman called the incident a new terror against a man who dedicated his life to preserving the memory of Nazi crimes and testimonies about the Holocaust.

Boris Zabarko is a well-known Ukrainian historian, a former prisoner of the Sharhorod ghetto, and the author of more than 230 books and articles.

Since the early 1990s, Boris Zabarko has been actively involved in the activities of the worldwide and Ukrainian movement of former minor prisoners of Nazism. (Boris Mikhailovich was only six years old when he ended up in the ghetto), and since 2004 he has headed the All-Ukrainian Association of Jews – former minor and juvenile prisoners of concentration camps and ghettos; he also leads the scientific and educational center Memory of the Catastrophe, holds the position of vice-president of the International Union of Public Associations of Jews – former prisoners of Nazism, is a member of the Public Council of the Babyn Yar Memorial Center, the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, the Academic Council of the scientific and educational center Tkuma, and the Supervisory Board of the International Foundation for Understanding and Tolerance.

Zabarko is the author of more than 230 books and articles, published not only in Ukraine but also in Austria, England, Hungary, Germany, Israel, and the USA. Among them are We Wanted to Live… Testimonies and Documents (in two books), Only We Survived, Life and Death in the Era of the Holocaust.

NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency On the same night, Kyiv experienced one of the heaviest strikes in recent times: as of 1:00 PM on July 3, 30 people were killed in the capital, more than 90 were injured, and another 10 are missing. Ukrainian forces reported hundreds of launched missiles and drones, and destruction was recorded in all areas of the city.

For Israel, this story sounds particularly poignant: it connects the memory of the Holocaust, the fate of a Jewish historian, and the current war in Europe. The strike on Kyiv once again showed that Russian attacks hit not only infrastructure but also people whose lives are connected with preserving historical memory.