O H0L0CAUSTO E A ATUAL GUERRA NA UCRÂNIA! Israel, Ucrânia e Russia

Shalom and welcome back to ‘Israel with Aline!’ Today we are going to talk about the current War in Ukraine and the relation of this terrible conflict to the H0l0caust. So if you’re ready, let’s get started! Let’s go back in time to the year 1933 when Hitler comes to power, and starts his racial discriminatory laws against Jews, Blacks, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies and other minorities. And this makes Jewish life in Germany even more difficult. Many Jews will be expelled, others unjustly imprisoned, will have their property confiscated, will be forbidden to attend schools, universities, restaurants, cinemas and even to sit on public benches. But the worst will begin in 1938, with the start of the H0l0caust that will culminate in the death of more than 6 million Jews, including one and a half million children. But what does all this have to do with Ukraine? On June 22, 1941, the Naz1s invade and conquer Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union, and between 1941 and 1944 one and a half million Ukrainian Jews are murdered in concentration camps, ghettos, extermination squads and other inhumane methods. And as in every period of darkness, there have always been people who risked their lives to fight for what is right. And among them are the “Righteous Among the Nations”, which is what non-Jews are called who risked their own lives for nothing in return to save Jews during the H0l0caust. And Ukraine is one of the countries with the highest number of Righteous Among the Nations that have been recognized, there are 2,673 heroes and heroines. And of those, 17 are alive in Ukraine to this day. And most of them are over 90 years old, and in a moment we will tell you what has been happening to some of them since the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. But before that I want to tell the story of one of these heroes, and the story begins in the small Ukrainian town of Seredyna-Buda, where little Raisa Agronovich lived with her father, mother and grandmother. But right at the beginning of the war, her father Lev, is called up to fight for the Soviet Union and she is left with her mother Adele and her grandmother. And on November 2, 1941, the Naz1sts invade Ukraine and Raisa’s family is unable to escape the city. And on the morning of November 16, 1941, a few days after Raisa’s 6th birthday the police search her, her mother and grandmother and take them to the police station where they are to be registered, arrested and put in a cell with more Jews. At that time it was common for Jews to be arrested without any justification and while Raisa is arrested she notices a very tall man in a blue uniform. And at the end of the day they are taken to an abandoned place and see people’s bodies lying in the snow and a man orders her to lie down on the ground and Raisa hears someone telling to aim for the head and then she hear gunshots. She was not injured, but her hand that was under her mother fills with blood. And on that day Raisa’s mother and grandmother are going to be murdered by the Naz1s with 101 other Jews from their town. And Raisa whispers one last sentence in her mother’s ear and runs away. And in the background she sees lights of houses and she goes in the direction and she knocks on the door of the first house, this 6 year old girl in bloody clothes, covered in snow on a freezing night, and she knocks from door to door and nobody opens the door for her. Until finally, at the end of her strength, she knocks on one last door and who opens the door and looks at her? It was that same tall man dressed in blue that she had seen at the police station. And she thinks it’s the end of her but it’s just the opposite, the man who opens the door was named Pavel Natarov and he takes her in, knowing who she was and the risk he was taking. And she goes to spend months hiding in his house, until Pavel marries a young woman named Maria and he moves out of the house and takes little Raisa with him and presents her as if she were his own niece and she will live with him until the year 1943 he will hide her for almost two years and then he sends her to stay with the Partisans so she will be safer with them. And Pavel’s courage saves this little girl, who at the end of the war is reunited with her father. And finally in 1995 Raisa and her family emigrate here to Israel and here she has a daughter, two grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, but she never forgot Pavel Natarov, the man who saved her life. And for much of her adult life, she searched for him but unfortunately without success. Pavel saved Raisa, but also several other people during the War by helping them escape and hide in different places. Until another policeman working at the same police station as Pavel finds out what he was doing and denounces him. And Pavel has to escape, but in the end it was in vain because he will be arrested and branded a traitor and sent to the Gulag, where he will suffer a lot and where he will also lose his left arm. And even after he leaves the Gulag, he will continue to be branded a traitor for trying to save Jews and minorities during H0l0caust. His wife will leave him and the only son he had will pass away in a factory accident. And Pavel Natarov will pass away in the year 1992 without any recognition for what he did. And Raisa is only in 2018 able to discover Pavel’s whereabouts, after he has already passed away but she takes her story and sends it to the H0l0caust Museum, to Yad Vashem here in Jerusalem and he will receive the Righteous Among the Nations honor, a more than deserved honor. And this thrilling story is just one story out of more than two thousand and seven hundred. Unfortunately, most of these Righteous Ones have passed away, but we have 17 Righteous Among the Nations still alive today in Ukraine. And let’s talk about what that means today, with the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All the Righteous Among the Nations when they receive the title, they also receive the option to have Israeli citizenship. And so the Righteous Among the Nations these 17 that are still living in Ukraine, they can emigrate to Israel, but counting that most of them are already 90 years old, that is a very difficult possibility. It is difficult for anybody to leave Ukraine now, even more so at that age, and so Israel is sending them help, and also Jewish organizations are sending them food, medicine, and other necessities that they have to keep themselves in Ukraine if they want to stay. And besides the Righteous Among the Nations, Israel is also rescuing Jews and Israelis who are in Ukraine and bringing them back, already more than 14 flights have rescued people to Israel, but besides that Israel has opened 25,000 places in Israel for Ukrainian refugees, sent tons of humanitarian aid and medical teams to Ukraine and the neighboring countries. Every war causes human suffering, suffering of innocent people, but what also causes suffering is the silence and apathy of people. Six million people were murdered in the H0l0caust, not only because of the Naz1’s and their allies, but because of the silence of the rest of the world. Pavel was the exception, unfortunately he and 2,700 people were the exception, but they managed to save thousands of people, and we have an expression that says that who saves one person is as if he had saved the whole world. And that is why I wanted to pay tribute today to Pavel, to the 17 Righteous Among the Nations who are still alive, and to all those who have already passed away, and part of them died at the hands of the Naz1s for having helped the Jews and other persecuted minorities. But I think that the lessons of the H0l0caust are here to this day, we see suffering in so many places in the world, the suffering of the Ukrainian population. Sometimes we feel so powerless in front of all this, but what we can do is really try to do our best, and in one way or another also try to save whole worlds. I apologize once again for bringing such a sad subject here on the channel, but I think it is important that we also talk about this conflict and once again pray for the peace of Ukraine, for the peace of the innocent Russian population, and of the other conflicts going on in the world, that we cannot forget them either. So pray for the peace of Jerusalem, pray for the peace of the world, and blessed are the Peacemakers. Shalom and see you next time.