In a corner of the Choral Synagogue in the western Ukrainian town of Drohobych, theres a stark display of pictures detailing the bloody and tragedy-strewn history of the areas Jewish community. One is especially horrifying: a black-and-white image of the corpses of four Jewish children killed by Nazis during World War II.

If you take a close look, there are parallels with right now, said Leonid Golberg, a 66-year-old member of the local Jewish Board, pointing to the image. Russia is now doing the same things in Ukraine.

Golberg is a senior member of the small, 40-member Jewish community of Drohobych, a town nestled in the rolling hills of Ukraine that grow into the Carpathian Mountains just a few miles further west.

The town used to have a far larger Jewish population. More than 12,000 Jews 40% of the towns population were killed in mass shootings, by starvation in the Nazi-established ghetto, or transported to the Beec extermination camp, just one small part of the systematic genocide of Jews during the Holocaust. In Drohobych, only 400 Jewish people survived the war.