 He was in Berdichev when the Nazi Germany launched their Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.As a student of the Academy, he was ordered to immediately return to Leningrad, while his parents remained in Berdichev, where they perished in Holocaust.Writer Vasily Grossman, whom Lembersky knew from childhood in Berdichev and whose family also perished in the city, collected documents and described the massacre of Berdichev in a detailed essay published the Black Book.