Holocaust survivors get help to flee from Ukraine

Grassroots groups work hard to build trust amid trauma

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 last 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.

“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.

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

It can be challenging to establish quick rapport with older people — many with serious health issues — huddled in their homes during wartime. Entin starts out by apologizing for speaking in Russian, instead of Ukrainian.

“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 had trouble getting survivors to leave with taxi or bus operators, who she says are vetted and recruited through referrals. This week, one man in his late 80s refused to leave because he was afraid he might die on the way.

This hesitation appears to be common among the elderly. Svetlana Jitomirskaya, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Irvine, has been speaking with her father’s 87-year-old friend in Kharkiv, a Holocaust survivor.

“He refuses to leave, he doesn’t want to move,” she said, adding that his 88-yearold wife has medical issues.

But there have been a few success stories that have kept Entin hopeful.

On Sunday, 81-year-old Holocaust survivor Valery Semenovich Zharkovsky, his daughter Inna Valerievna Zharkovskaya and her 8-year-old daughter, were rescued from their home in Kharkiv.

Entin said Wednesday that the family arrived in Germany, where Zharkovsky’s brother lives. She said Jewish refugees typically choose to go to Israel — its Law of Return lets Jewish people make “aliyah” and acquire citizenship — or other parts of Europe where they could receive benefits, such as health care, right away.

“Regardless of where they choose to go, it has to be a ‘warm handoff,’ which means someone will always be on the other side of the border to greet them and put them on the path to their destination,” Entin said.

With attacks intensifying, volunteers have been arriving at the Polish border to assist evacuation efforts.

Liana Georgi — an artist, psychologist and LGBTQ activist who splits her time between Berlin and Istanbul — is among a core group of volunteers with Safebow, a group formed by gender n o n c o n f o r mi n g a c t o r and activist Rain Dove to conduct rescue operations.

The group has been communicating via WhatsApp and started “as a mental support group to give people the courage to flee,” said Georgi, speaking from Warsaw. “It’s about being there for each other, even if it’s virtually.”

Safebow has partnered with Entin’s organization to evacuate Holocaust survivors, as well.

Georgi said the group is focusing on rescuing vulnerable minority groups, including those in the LGBTQ community, the disabled and people of color.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and the Jewish Federation of North America have been involved in getting Jewish refugees from Ukraine to Israel, said

Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the former. He said his organization raised $1 million in four days, with the suffering in Ukraine resonating with members of other diaspora communities in Los Angeles.

“Many here in Los Angeles, even if they are not Russian or Ukrainian, see themselves in this story,” Farkas said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has — in what experts call a ploy — claimed he want to “denazify” Ukraine, led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a Jewish president whose relatives were killed in the Holocaust.

From Los Angeles, paralegal Julia Entin coordinates efforts last week to evacuate Holocaust survivors in Ukraine. Other groups are also working to relocate refugees.