Despite two and a half years of war, our team members in Ukraine continue to travel tirelessly to visit survivors and post-war children in the Jewish communities.
Loneliness weighs heavily on each one of them – even more than the daily struggle for physical survival, even more than inflation and power cuts. Years later, the survivors still gratefully remember the last meeting – and hope for the next one. But organizing a meeting in the current situation is no easy task.
Even though the war in Vinnitsa is relatively distant geographically, you feel its impact everywhere. Tank barriers are placed at every road junction; the sirens wail almost every day – and then suddenly the electricity is cut off. The country is saving whenever possible so that it will still have enough for the basics after all the destruction of the infrastructure by Russian missiles.
Down to the basement
If “increased danger” is displayed on the mobile warning app, you should go to a shelter, even in war-experienced Ukraine, a local colleague explains to me. When we arrive at the restaurant for our meeting with the elderly, the driver’s phone rings and displays the warning message
“increased danger”. What should we do now? Will our carefully planned meeting fall through? But life goes on in this busy city as if nothing happened. Most residents don’t have a shelter anyway, and taking the elevator down to the basement in one of the apartment blocks during frequent power cuts is also risky. People are somehow trying to live with the constant threat. And while our guests are arriving, we do the best thing we can do – we head to the safe basement of a restaurant reserved especially for us.
“If my dad had lived to see this”
Klara, one of the first survivors we included in our program, arrives half an hour earlier. “Of
course, I remember you – what a question!” she exclaims. “I was a teacher; my head still works quite well! You know, I’ve often thought about it – your granddad was in the war, my dad was in the war. Neither of them wanted it. So many awful things happened back then. I didn’t have a
cousin; so many of my family died. And now we’re meeting here! If only my father had lived to see this – Germans and Jews come together in friendship!”
And then they come, one after the other – hugging us, putting boxes of chocolates into my hands, overjoyed that I have returned.
“I’m not leaving the house at all!” says Emira, who is accompanied by her son – the only relative she still has. “I only came because of you! Because I was so keen to see you!”
Encounters with “other Germans”
Anna doesn’t want to let go of me. She tells me about Stalingrad and how she hated everyone and everything German for a long time. “And then I met Germans who were different. That changed everything,” says Anna. “You can’t imagine what it means to us that you’ve come to us in this difficult time! May God repay you many times for what you do for us!”
At the last minute, Alina found a musician to add some culture to our culinary program. While Yuri, who himself learned Yiddish from his great-grandmother, takes us on a musical tour of Jewish cuisine, the food is being brought out.
I talk about the past, about the people in my village who understood, even in communist times, that the Jewish people are loved and chosen by God; and about all the doors that God has opened since then.
A day of celebration during wartime
“I’ve put on my best dress today – it’s a day of celebration for us too!” says Larisa.
“The fact that you’ve come to do something good for us despite all the dangers – that’s balm for the soul,” says Valentina.
The atmosphere is overwhelming. I would be fighting back tears if I had time to think about it. But I try to make the most of every moment – to shake someone’s hand here, ask a question there, give someone a hug there. We haven’t done anything special, I think; we’re just here for these lonely Jewish senior citizens; hosting them for a few hours. I am moved by how much this simple act of being there means to them.
“Say hello to the lovely people who have made this festive get-together possible for us today,” says Vladimir, who was picked up with other guests by our driver from the neighboring village. “We bow to you for what you do for us!”
Nadyezhda – a whole life in mourning
At the end of a long day full of visits to Holocaust survivors in the surrounding villages, we still have one flower arrangement left and decide to stop by Nadyezhda’ s house. She was not present at our meeting; even her biography was shared with us by her sister Sofia as our contact person said it was difficult to communicate with Nadyezhda.
When we enter Nadyezhda’s living room and hand over the flowers, tears immediately start running down her face. “I am left all alone,” she says. ”Eight years ago, my only daughter died of cancer, and a little later my only granddaughter died as well.” Nadyezhda has been in mourning for eight years. Actually, for eight decades, her whole life.
Her Jewish father was captured by the Germans, managed to escape and hid in the village for a long time. Then he was betrayed by a neighbor. Ten days later he was dead. Then the Germans came again to pick up the oldest daughter, Tatyana, who had run after her father. She was deported to Regensburg for forced labor. Tatyana searched for her family for a long time, they later found out. Since all contact abroad was forbidden in the Soviet Union, the sisters never saw each other again.
Nadyezhda has also been widowed for a long time. Only her 83-year-old sister Sofia remains.
“I don’t want to live anymore. I’ve been begging God for a long time to take me to where my daughter and granddaughter are,” says Nadyezhda in tears.
A ray of hope for Nadyezhda
We are trying to find words that could bring Nadyezhda hope. We don’t have to look far. “Nadyezhda” means nothing other than ‘hope’!
“If God has kept you on earth, he still needs you here,” says my colleague Alisa, who herself lost her parents-in-law in the current war. “Then he still has a task for you!”
We read the card to Nadyezhda: “Fear not, I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will also help you, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.” The words from God’s mouth help to calm Nadyezhda down.
I still have an artfully crafted scarf from a friend in Germany with me. It’s black, and I’ve been thinking the whole time about whom I should give it to. Now I know.
Yet it’s not completely black – it has a light gray edge. I put it around Nadyezhda’s neck and tell her that there’s a bright silver lining on the horizon.
Now Nadyezhda’s tears have dried. Gratitude is rising – for all the help; for the fact that we are not abandoning her.
We ask if we should print off the photos we have just taken for her. “Of course, I’d love to! That is, if I’m still here!”
“Then you’ll just have to stay alive for that long. Your job now is to stay in good shape until we come back with the photos!”
And Nadyezhda promises to do so.
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