By: Koen Carlier, Christians for Israel – Ukraine, translated from the Dutch by Anemone Rüger
We are still operating in Ukraine, transporting Jewish refugees to Israel via Moldova. One of our drivers is currently stationed in western Ukraine, working with the Israeli immigration authorities to bring Jewish emigrants to the Polish border. We have released five phone numbers where people seeking assistance can reach us. We are now also receiving regular requests from Israel to help relatives in remote areas of Ukraine.
Then we set about organizing the logistics and finally dispatching our evacuation buses. One of the emigrants was Zylik Edison, a Holocaust survivor from Dnipro (formerly Dnepropetrovsk, in eastern Ukraine). When his hometown of Kyiv was bombed during World War II, young Zylik fled to Dnipro with his mother, thinking she would be safe there. But then a local man blackmailed her, threatening to betray her unless she handed over all her valuables. She gave him everything of value, but didn't trust the man and fled with her only son in the middle of the night to a village where they could hide. Zylik's father was sent to the front with the Red Army and was killed. His sister was also fleeing with two small children. On the way, they were caught in an air raid. The mother threw herself over her children and saved their lives; she herself died in the attack. Later, Zylik had only one wish: to go to Israel with his mother. But that was practically impossible in the Soviet Union.
In 2004, Zylik's mother finally passed away at an advanced age. His plan to go to Israel faded more and more into the background – until the war broke out on February 24th, taking many by surprise. When the first rockets fell on the Dnieper River, Zylik was jolted awake. "I knew I had to leave," he recounts. "But I didn't even have a passport." Once that problem was solved, everything happened very quickly. As part of a larger group of emigrants, we took him to Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, after a short stay in our emergency accommodation. During the journey, he told us his eventful life story. Soon, Zylik will be going to Israel along with 50 other new immigrants – even though he doesn't know anyone there.
Mom, you have to go NOW!
Gilda's daughter has been living in Israel for several years. The plan was for her parents to join her one day, but the war accelerated the move. Gilda and her husband had been aiming for autumn, but even that seemed too long to their daughter. She called almost every day. "Mom, you have to come now! You have the most important thing, your passports! Drop everything and come!" Recently, they were part of a group we took to Moldova for entry into Israel.
“Hear the word of the Lord, you nations; proclaim it in the islands far off: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and tend them like a shepherd tends his flock.’”
Jeremiah 31:10
This article first appeared on the website of our Dutch branch, “Christenen voor Israël”.
