In Brooklyn, a Ukrainian community re-lives old horror while watching Russia's invasion

Pavel Averbukh, 86, has lived near New York’s Brighton Beach neighborhood for the past three decades, but when he watches the news about Ukraine, he is transported back to being a 6-year-old in Odessa, Ukraine.

“My heart is bleeding from the pain that I’m experiencing by observing this,” he said in Russian, according to a translator. “The consistent, perpetual fear of being killed and exterminated at any moment is something I’m reliving consistently while watching the news.”

Averbukh is a Holocaust survivor. He said he remembers the day in 1941 when he was lucky enough to get on the last boat out of Odessa. His grandmother, who refused to evacuate Ukraine at the time, was killed during World War II.

As Averbukh attends activities for older adults at Kings Bay Y in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, he said he worries for the safety of many of his cousins who live nearly 5,000 miles away in Ukraine.