I HEAR ECHOES OF MY GRANDPA WHEN ZELENSKYY SPEAKS
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks in his heavily accented English pleading for military aid to support Ukraine’s uphill battle against brutal Russian aggression, I hear echoes of my Ukrainian-born Grandpa Fred Reznicki (later Anglicized to Rosen).
As a boy in 1920s Ukraine, he endured a decade of starvation in the bloody, tumultuous post-Russian Revolution era. Like my grandfather, Zelenskyy is Jewish — with kind crinkly eyes, high Slavic cheekbones and a broad nose.
Most of our Ukrainian Jewish family fled to America in the late 1920s. Zelenskyy’s ancestors stayed in Ukraine. They survived two historic atrocities: invading Russian soldiers who confiscated Ukraine’s food harvest leading to a Great Famine that killed over 3 million Ukrainians in the 1930s, and the Nazi invasion that killed millions of Jewish civilians (including relatives of both Zelenskyy and Reznicki) in the 1940s.
Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which began a year ago, is inflicting a third round of severe generational trauma in less than a century. Over the past year, the Russian military has committed a sequence of atrocities intended to break Ukrainians’ will: dragged civilians from their homes, then tortured, murdered and buried them in mass graves; raped women of all ages and pillaged their valuables; mined the Black
Sea coast with ordnance that has killed beachgoers seeking respite; bombed pediatric hospitals, maternity wards and elementary schools; and repeatedly knocked out infrastructure to deprive Ukrainians of heat, water and electricity.
A report issued Feb. 14 by Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab broke the news of another horrific war crime tantamount to a mass kidnapping: Russia’s systematic separation of thousands of Ukrainian children from their families. Russia has permanently relocated these children to areas under government control via a network of 43 camps to “reeducate” and Russify them — more evidence of Putin’s intent to annihilate Ukrainian culture.
In an interview with Time magazine, Zelenskyy (Time’s Person of the Year for 2022) told reporter Simon Shuster that during his tenure as Ukraine’s president he wants to break the cycle of oppression and tragedy that has engulfed his country for generations. This means Ukraine exorcising
Russia from its country by winning the war.
As both Russia and Ukraine prepare for bloody spring warfare, Zelenskyy traveled abroad at great personal risk the past two months asking for military support. He sought NATO-standard fighter jets from the United Kingdom and Germany, advanced tanks from France and the United States, and more humanitarian aid from all corners.
I feel my late Grandpa Fred’s spirit urging
After a year of psychic and physical torture, the Ukrainian people deserve NATO’s decisive support — enough to enable them to win the war or reach a fair settlement. The Ukrainians are shedding their blood to hold the line against Russian barbarism.
me to join in Zelenskyy’s advocacy for Ukraine. When my sister and I were young children, he devised a pantomime to test our generosity and empathy.
At the end of our family Sunday lunches, our grandmother served my sister and me bowls of Neapolitan ice cream — striped with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. As we dove into our favorite dessert, Grandpa Fred would say, “Kinderlach” — little children — “can I have some of your ice cream? I want to try each flavor.”
“We won’t have enough left if we give you that much,” I, the eldest, replied.
“Please, I’m your zayde!” my grandfather would say. “I’m sad if you don’t share with me.” He’d rub his eyes with his fists and pretend to weep.
Seeing his deep sorrow, we’d pass our bowls to him and say, “Don’t cry. You can have some.”
His luminous smile spread ear-to-ear, his eyes sparkled with joy, and he’d say, “OK, keep your ice cream. I want you to know how to share when someone is sad.”
“You tricked us,” we’d say, grinning back at him. This ice cream ritual repeated itself whenever he thought we were selfish or unkind. Looking back, I realize he wanted to teach us, his American-born grandchildren, to understand the desperation of hunger and deprivation.
After a year of enduring psychic and physical torture, the Ukrainian people deserve NATO’s decisive support — enough to enable them to win the war or negotiate a fair settlement. The Ukrainians are shedding their blood and sacrificing their children to hold the line against Russian totalitarianism and barbarism. They are sad beyond measure and need us to share.
My mensch (good man) of a zayde Grandpa Fred would insist we give his homeland much more than our ice cream — Ukrainians are crying out for resources essential to their survival.