For elderly and Holocaust survivors caught in the middle of the war in Ukraine, this past year has been very scary and stressful to say the least. While we continue to deliver food and medicine to the weakest of God’s precious people, we also offer to help them make aliyah if they are strong enough and able to do so. Israel National News reports on the survivors who are so grateful for returning to the Holy Land:
Since the war in Ukraine began almost a year ago, the global Fellowship has assisted in bringing over 382 Ukrainian refugee new immigrants to Israel who were victims of Nazi occupation during the war. For these survivors, the horrors of encroaching bombs and being forced into hiding revive traumas that they had prayed were left behind with the end of World War II.
Among them is Yosif Hitrik, who was born in the Ukrainian city of Kherson in 1939 and was less than three years old when the war reached his home. He says that despite his age, he remembers fleeing his house and the fear that he would get separated from his parents. Yosif’s family made it to the banks of the Dniepr river, where they were able to escape on a raft. “Until today, I remember the sound of German airplanes above, which I knew were bringing horror and death,” he said. “I can distinctly remember the feeling of my mother’s heartbeat when she lay down on top of me, covering me with her body and trying to save me from the bombs.”
