SHULIM GUDELMAN

From the beginning of WWII, Shulim Gudelman volunteered to defend his country and its inhabitants. He participated in battlefields in Ukraine and his battalion was besieged. Miraculously, he escaped to the forests before the Nazi soldiers took him hostage. He was able to join a group of partisans and engaged in underground operations against the enemy. Shulim rejoined his military regiment in 1943 and fought honorably until the end of the war. He was awarded numerous medals for his service. Returning to the peaceful time in his native Zhitomir was bittersweet. His parents and his sister and brother with their families were savagely exterminated by the Nazis in a Babi Yar type mass grave on the outskirts of Zhitomir. But a sister and three other brothers miraculously survived fighting on the fronts of WWII. Soon, Shulim married Bella and together they raised two sons in Kiev, Ukraine. In 1980 the family emigrated to Los Angeles. In 1995, Shulim Gudelman, alongside his brother Abram and their battle comrades who came for the occasion from Israel, all proudly marched in the Veterans Parade dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of Victory in WWII.