A rescue mission launched by the JCC Chabad moved dozens of Jewish senior citizens residing in Kyiv to safety in Łódź, Poland.
Under constant Russian attacks, many of the elderly Jews who were unwilling or unable to leave Ukraine's capital were suffering from the freezing conditions, prompting the city's rabbi to join efforts to secure their safe relocation, at least for the winter months.
Lea, for example, is an 83-year-old widow who has been living alone in Kyiv for some 20 years. Despite the constant bombardment, she decided to stay put in her home because of health complications. Emma, 70, moved from Donetsk to Kyiv in 2014 and also preferred to stay.
Both Lea and Emma were rescued in the past two weeks, as part of the special mission.
"The temperatures have dropped to negative ten degrees Celcius and most of the houses in the city don't have heating," said Rabbi Jonathan Markowitz, chief rabbi of Kyiv. "The long power outages make it impossible to heat the homes. On top of that, the water outages and rising food prices leave many elderly people freezing and hungry," he said.
"We decided that we must use unconventional measures and bring them to safety, at least for the winter."
Unfortunately, there are many more senior citizens like Lea and Emma in Kyiv's Jewish community, who chose to stay home because they could not, or would not immigrate to Israel and go through the difficult stages of absorption.
"I live on the eighth floor, I had a heart attack a few years ago, even with a stick it's very hard for me to walk," said 82-year-old Naum.
Before the war broke out, Naum relied on his son, who lived close by, to help him. However, his son was drafted when the Russians invaded Ukraine, leaving him all by himself.
Rabbi Markowitz said that the project started off by putting together a list of 400 Jewish senior citizens that may not make it through the winter if they remained in Kyiv. The elderly Jews were evacuated from their homes and put up in Poland for the winter.
The first mission rescued dozens of Jewish senior citizens. After a long journey of about 20 hours, they were greeted by the Jewish community in Łódź.
"It was a long and rough ride, but now I am no longer scared to die of hunger, cold, or missiles," said Lea.