She served in the Russian army, and died with Russia at war

In the midst of the Ukraine-Russian war in Eastern Europe this week, an elderly Ukrainian-born woman who served as a doctor in the Red Army died on Monday, 28 February, at Sandringham Gardens in Johannesburg.

“She was unforgettable,” said South African Board of Deputies National Director, Wendy Kahn, of Dr Tsipra Boudnitski. “I remember seeing her whenever there was an event at the Russian embassy. She would arrive with her hair coiffed, and she always wore her uniform with her many medals.

“Dr Boudnitski was at the liberation of Auschwitz as a doctor with the Red Army,” she said. This Jewish doctor had been brought in to care for the survivors of the camps.

Kahn first heard this when Boudnitski spoke at the 70th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz in 2015. There, she described the horrific scenes that greeted her and her comrades when they entered the newly-liberated death camps and the subsequent struggle to save the lives of the sick and malnourished survivors.Everyone at the Jewish aged home knew of Boudnitski’s experiences as a doctor in the Russian military during World War II and its aftermath because she would speak about it and she had 15 medals from the Russian government for her brave and selfless work.

When she passed away at 98, she left behind her 15 medals that adorned a red shirt she kept on display in her room at Sandringham Gardens.

Other than her medals, she was repeatedly recognised as a top-rate doctor, professor, radiology consultant, and teacher.

Boudnitski was born in 1923 in Ukraine, where being Jewish wasn’t something you publicised. She studied medicine, during which she volunteered to be one of 12 students that Moscow University would send to work in hospitals as members of the Red Army.

In an interview with the SA Jewish Report in 2018, she said, “When they told us they needed students to work, I put my hand up. When I came to my parents and told them, they argued with me. They told me, ‘You have a brain! Why did you choose to do this?’ But I couldn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I had to.”

Later, in 1941, she worked in a hospital in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, where she helped treat wounded soldiers, many of whom couldn’t be rehabilitated. “There were about 75 of them,” she told the SA Jewish Report. “I worked with doctors and other students to look after them. It was hard, and I worked even at night.”

Although she gave her all to her five-year Red Army service, she didn’t enjoy it. “The time in the army wasn’t good,” she said. “So many people were hurt, sick, and dying. There was sometimes nothing we could do for them. So many suffered. So many.”

She remained in Kazakhstan, working and studying, until shortly before the end of the war, when she contracted malaria. She was told to return to Moscow. “I went back to my parents, and I finished my studies in four months.” She qualified as a physician the year the war ended, and shortly thereafter as a radiologist.

As a qualified doctor, she went on to help Russians who had been impacted by the Nazi invasion of Russia, and the famine which gripped the country following the war.

She focused on treating survivors of war. She witnessed the horrific scenes of the newly-liberated death camps as the Russian forces rooted out remaining Nazi forces.

After that, she met and married Joseph Boudnitski, an eminent scientist and academic who was involved in the development of classified technology and engineering projects, including the Kosmos rocket. They had two children. Boudnitski practised as a medical doctor, radiologist, and professor of medicine until she was pensioned at the age of 60. Her husband continued his work until the age of 71.

Boudnitski told the SA Jewish Report that her son, Vladimir, then suggested that her parents move to South Africa, a country he has grown to love after being sent there while working for Microsoft.

“He said that Johannesburg was very nice,” Boudnitski said, “and that we should come here because it’s beautiful and better than the difficult life in Russia.” She and her husband submitted applications for the necessary visas, and though hers was approved within a month, it took five years for her husband to receive approval.

In the late 1990s, the Boudnitskis arrived in South Africa to live, neither speaking much English. Not being proficient in English or Afrikaans, she was unable to get her medical licence to practise in South Africa.

“Russia, I don’t miss,” she said back in 2018. “It’s very hard there. The tzorres there is too much, and there was always hunger, poverty, and sickness. That’s what Russia was to me.”

She moved into Sandringham Gardens in 1993 after her husband passed away. There she was able to help out using her medical training, checking the blood pressure of staff and fellow residents regularly and voluntarily.

Until her last days, 29 years after arriving at Sandringham Gardens, she had her wits about her and was loved by all.

“Until the end, she radiated energy and positivity”, said Rabbi Jonathan Fox, the Chevrah Kadisha Group’s rabbi. “She loved coming to shul, and was proud of being Jewish.

“She projected a good self-image to everyone. She was proud of everything – her roots and of everything she had achieved as a doctor. Her life was one of service – in her early years; to people around her at Sandringham Gardens; and to Hashem.”

Tzivia Grauman, the head of communications for the Chev, said, “She would like to be remembered as someone who was honoured for having lived a moral and upright life. So many children who visited Sandringham Gardens got to know her – she showed them her medals, and was proud of having been able to help people as a doctor and relieve suffering.”

Boudnitski is survived by her son, Vladimir, his wife, and their four children.