Yefim Filler: A Hero Killed

Exactly 80 years ago today, my grandfather, Yefim Filler, was killed in battle fighting the Nazi German invaders.  

My grandfather was a very patriotic and brave fighter.  He enlisted immediately on June 23, 1941- which was the very next day after Nazi Germany began invading Soviet Union.  My grandfather faced an enemy that came to engage in mass extermination of Slavs and Jews in an effort to colonize Russian lands.  Methodically, as the German army advanced, it was followed behind by Nazi mass murdering death squads known as “Eisatzgruppen.”

Eisatzgruppen rounded up and murdered civilians as part of Nazis’ detailed “General Plan OST (East)”, which was prepared for Hitler as a blueprint for exterminating Slavic people and resettling Germans on their lands.  It is estimated that between 27-40 million Soviet men, women, and children were murdered by the Nazis during WW2.

In one of his last communications with my grandmother, my grandfather assured her he and his fellow soldiers were ready to “fight to the death” against Nazi invaders to defend the motherland.  My grandmother, a very smart and strong woman, was six months pregnant at the time and caring for their four children. She made a fateful decision to ignore my grandfather’s advice and instead took their children, while pregnant, and physically fought a huge crowd in order to evacuate Kiev to go further in to Russia. By making that decision she saved all our lives. Most of their friends, neighbors, and family members who did not evacuate were mass murdered by the Nazis.

After entering and occupying the city of Kiev, on September 29-30, 1941 the German army with the help of Bandera Nazi Ukrainians, rounded up all the Jews in Kiev, then stripped, bludgeoned, raped, and executed all of them in the Babi Yar massacre.  In just those two days 33,771 people, mostly Jews, were shot and buried, even while still alive, in a ravine called Babi Yar. 

As a child, I recall my family passing the Babi Yar site and everyone knew that it was the place where the blood drenched soil moved for days following the massacre.  By the time the Russian army liberated Kiev, it is estimated that between 100,000 and 150,000 Jews and Christian Slavs were massacred and buried in the Babi Yar by the Nazis.  It is one of thousands of Nazi Eisatzgruppen mass murder sites in Soviet Union where millions were exterminated and buried.

My grandfather fought in the war for 1 ½ years, and ended up in one of the most hellish battle scenes of the war in what became known as Russia’s Demyansk Pocket, where the Red Army encircled the Nazis who attempted to take Moscow. 

By the winter of 1942-43, the tides were turning against the brutal Nazi invaders.  Decisive battles in places like Stalingrad and elsewhere dealt what would become fatal blows to German fantasies and its Third Reich.  But on February 8, 1943 my grandfather, a sniper in a shooting brigade, was killed in battle.  Within weeks of his death, the Germans responsible were surrounded and crushed.  My grandfather’s remains were buried and then reburied in a mass grave.  He died a hero and left behind my grandmother to raise their surviving five young children alone.

Today, 80 years later, Kiev is again occupied by the Bandera Nazis who proudly wear the Nazi swastika uniforms, tattoos, and fly Nazi flags in Kiev.  Russian language has been banned.  1200 year old Christian Orthodox Church has been banned.  WW2 Nazi war criminals now have streets renamed after them in Kiev.  WW2 memorials honoring Red Army heroes are torn down.  Survivors and WW2 heroes are being abused and prevented from celebrating Red Army’s victory over Nazism. 

Thousands of men, women, and small children have been murdered and crimes against humanity have been committed by the Kiev regime.  And today, Germany is again training and supplying heavy weapons to Ukrainian Neo-Nazis with the aim to kill Slavs and seize control of natural and strategic resources.

My grandfather, like 27 million of my people, gave his life to liberate all of Russia/Ukraine and the world from Nazism.  May he rest in peace, and may his spirit of patriotism and bravery live on in those who fight to liberate Kiev and the rest of Russian lands today.