At a moment in world history, when fascism seems to be rearing its ugly head again, the time feels right for yet another plunge into the past. Unfortunately, most people tend to forget what previous generations lived through. This is why I chose to read How My Grandfather Stole a Shoe (And Survived the Holocaust in Ukraine), a new memoir that does not disappoint.
The stories that journalist Julie Masis shares take us to Ukraine and Moldova. Moldova was under Romanian control during the Second World War.
Shlomo, the author’s grandfather, grew up in Zguritsa, a small town in the north of Moldava, not far from the Ukrainian border. Romania sided with Nazi Germany and Romanian soldiers marched into Zguritsa on July 3, 1941, disrupting the lives of its numerous Jewish inhabitants.
“It seemed the Moldovans and the Ukrainians had been told in advance to come to Zguritsa to steal from the Jews,” Julie Masis explains.
The Jews were forced out of their home village. They walked for days. At some point, the Romanian soldiers divided their captives into two groups. One group was murdered shortly thereafter. The other group—around 9,500 people—were ordered to march all the way to Transnistria (a region of Southern Ukraine that was occupied by Romania at the time). There, thousands of Jews were forced into half-constructed cowsheds on the outskirts of the village Obodovka. This became known as the Obodovka ghetto.
The memoir introduces charismatic Shlomo, who turned 25 in the summer of 1941. Shlomo found himself living in a crowded cowshed, with practically nothing to eat until war’s end. When fellow inmates died of starvation, their corpses were piled against a wall, since no one had the strength to bury them. In the memoir, the author explains how her grandfather managed to obtain enough food to survive and shared it with others in the ghetto. I found his stories extremely compelling.
Julie Masis also interviewed her father, Shlomo’s son Alexander.
In the memoir, it becomes clear that antisemitism lingered after the war. An antisemitic slur caused fourteen-year-old Alexander to punch another teenager. After the bully’s older brother returned to Zguritsa, they tracked down Alexander and stuffed soil into his mouth. They yelled at him, “Too bad Hitler didn’t kill all of you!”
In 2015, Julie Masis traveled to Ukraine and sought out the places, which had held such importance in the lives of her ancestors. I was especially moved by her thoughts as she wandered through half-deserted villages and along the cobblestone roads that had figured in her grandfather’s youth. In one town, she encountered a cow in a Jewish cemetery and realized the town’s current inhabitants were in the process of turning land into pasture, mindless of the abandoned graves. The lack of heat in her hotel room brought home the reality of her grandmother’s plight at having been obliged to walk shoeless through snow to reach Obodovka.
Local Ukrainians helped people in the ghetto as much as they could without suffering arrest themselves. Julie Masis tried to search them out to see what they remembered of the war years. I found it interesting that the author didn’t reveal that she was Jewish herself during the interviews.
The memoir is illustrated with original artwork, created by Soviet artist Felix Lembersky. Although the black and white drawings were made years ago, they fit amazingly well with the text and provide a cogent reminder of both the period and the horror, also experienced during the war by Lembersky, famous for his “Execution: Babyn Yar” canvases.
Shlomo spent his final years in a nursing home in Peabody, Massachusetts, where his granddaughter interviewed him during her many visits before he passed away at 102. This fascinating memoir emphasizes the importance of family. Julie Masis’ grandfather kept his values and his good humor despite the hardship and never capitulated, not once.
How My Grandfather Stole a Shoe (And Survived the Holocaust in Ukraine), by Julie Masis. Boston, Massachusetts: Cherry Orchard Books, July 2025. 243 pages. $18.00, paper.
Alexandra Grabbe is a former talk show host in Paris, a former green innkeeper on Cape Cod, and a forever writer. In 2024, Cherry Orchard Books published The Nansen Factor: Refugee Stories, a collection of linked short stories. Köehler Books will publish her memoir in March 2026. Find recent work at alexandragrabbe.com.
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