98-year-old woman, living memory of the Ukrainian resistance, calls on Putin to back down

At 98 years old, Rozalia Choba carries within herself a part of the history of Ukraine: anti-Nazi resistance, Soviet gulag and exile. To all this is now added the Russian invasion, which he hopes to survive.

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“I love my land, my people (…) need peace, freedom. We Ukrainians want to have our own state,” says this grandmother who lives in Solonka, a town in the Lviv region in western Ukraine.

– Forced labor in Germany and Siberia –

Since October 2021, Choba has followed on television the upsurge in tensions with Moscow and the concentration of Russian troops and war material on the border with Ukraine that preceded the invasion and the war that she had predicted.

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“Germany did the same with Poland,” says the woman, alluding to the beginning of World War II (1939-45).

In 1941, when she was 18 years old, Choba was sent to do forced labor in Germany, from where she would not return until the end of the conflict.

Rosalia Choba. (Clara MARCHAUD / AFP) (CLARA MARCHAUD /)

Upon his return, he supported the resistance against the Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a part, which led to a ten-year sentence in 1947 in a penal colony in Siberia, the ‘gulags’ of the communist regime. “Nothing to brag about, I did what I could to help,” he says modestly.

In her room with traditional decoration, lace curtains and an icon on the wall, the nonagenarian shows a Soviet accusation and some childhood photos: here we see her in a dress in the middle of the field; there, at Christmas, she was in the gulag with her classmates.

“In a word, I survived, I have lived until now and, if God allows me, I will also survive this war”, emphasizes the old woman, almost a hundred years old.

– “Let the people live in peace!” –

Choba’s faint voice is soft. But when he talks about Russian President Vladimir Putinthis “babushka”, whose head is covered with a shawl, stands up and leans on her walker as if it were a tribune.

“Think about what you are doing, let people live in peace, all of Europe, not just Ukraine, because everyone will have problems!” he exclaims waving his hands. “Listen to me, I’m old, I’m 98 years old!” she continues.

“She is our heroine, she defended Ukraine; without her we would not be here today, ”says her son Myroslav, entering the living room with a bouquet of roses, which he gives her as a gift for March 8.

As in many former Soviet republics, it is customary to give gifts to women on this international day that celebrates their rights. In this conflict, as in the one in Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, the latter play a key role, both in combat and in the rear.

Rosalia Choba. (Clara MARCHAUD / AFP) (CLARA MARCHAUD /)

True to the family history of resistance, Choba’s granddaughters weave camouflage nets for the army and her son organizes humanitarian aid in the village.

This grandmother does not want to harm anyone, “except Putin”. “If the tanks reach Solonka, I will tell them to go back the way they came and even give them bread for the road!” he asserts.

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Source: Elcomercio