Holocaust survivors find helping hands

LOS ANGELES — Since the shelling began to intensify in Kyiv and Kharkiv about a week ago, Julia Entin has been working feverishly — thousands of miles away in Los Angeles — to evacuate Holocaust survivors in Ukraine who find themselves trapped in yet another conflict.

For the past six years, the 39-year-old paralegal at Beth Tzedek Legal Services has helped connect Holocaust survivors with local services. Now, Entin is coordinating rescue efforts in Ukraine because she says she feels a personal connection to their painful predicament. “These are already survivors of severe trauma,” said Entin, a refugee from the former Soviet Union and granddaughter of a Ukrainian Holocaust survivor. “And now with this war, they are experiencing that trauma all over again.”

Entin is a strand in an intricate web of grassroots organizations — Jewish and non-Jewish — that has been spinning round the clock in Ukraine, working with taxi and bus operators to ferry members of vulnerable communities out of the war zone.

In a time of crisis when Jewish people from Ukraine are attempting to flee to Europe and Israel, groups such as the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles and partner organizations such as Entin’s, have been helping families stateside who want loved ones extricated.

Entin has been calling survivors in Ukraine, usually with a family member or friend on the line.

“I identify myself and tell them who I am — the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor,” she said. “I tell them how my grandfather was not evacuated and lived through (World War II) under Nazi occupation. It is a deep connection we have. And that helps build trust.”

Entin has still had trouble getting survivors to leave with trusted taxi or bus operators, who she says are vetted and recruited through referrals.

The work of evacuating Holocaust survivors in Ukraine is continuing as bombings have escalated. On Tuesday, Entin said she was working to help three couples — all Holocaust survivors — who were struggling after a night of more shelling and devastation in Kharkiv.

“One of the couples has no water and heat,” she said. “I’ve been up now for 38 hours straight trying to figure things out.”