Published: 14 September 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
GALYNA PISKORSKA, now in Melbourne after being forced to leave her country, reflects on how the Russian invasion has changed the relationship between Ukraine and its Jewish community.
Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion changed my life, as it did for millions of Ukrainians and Ukrainian Jews. From February 24, 2022, civilian populations in Uman, Cherkasy, Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Zhitomir, Lviv, Chernivtsi, including about 100,000 Ukrainian Jews, have been subjected to merciless missile strikes and artillery fire. This war has triggered the largest displacement crisis in Europe since WWII.
A recent report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research points to 2022 as a watershed year for both Ukrainian and Russian Jews: “if migration from these countries continues for seven years at the levels seen in 2022 and early 2023, 80%-90% of the 2021 Jewish population of Ukraine and 50%-60% of the 2021 Jewish population of Russia will have emigrated.”
“Times have changed but certain things never change”. These words from an older Jewish woman, a Ukrainian refugee, tear at my heart. “They killed us then because we were Jews. They are killing us now because we are Ukrainians.” Yes, times have changed. This war has come from the east and the Russian soldier has become the embodiment of absolute evil – an evil that Ukraine has been resisting with all its might.
The parallels with WW2 are present both in the news and the everyday life. My parents, historians from Kyiv, were both witnesses and participants of that war. I inherited not just their profession, but also the memory of what it takes to resist the all-powerful enemy.
The parallels with World War II are starkly present both in the news and the everyday life. My parents, historians from Kyiv, were both witnesses and participants of that war. As a child, my mum managed to survive occupation. My dad, at 18, joined the army and served as a miner with the 4th Ukrainian front. I inherited not just their profession, but also the memory of what it takes to resist the all-powerful enemy, as well as a shared intergenerational history of suffering, resilience and survival.
My parents worked as tour guides in Kyiv all their lives. It is from them that I learned about the Holocaust. Whenever we would walk past the Kyiv puppet theatre, my dad would whisper that this used to be the Brodsky Choral synagogue where Jews hid from persecution. We would frequently go to Babyn Yar together, one of the largest mass extermination sites of what has been referred to as “the Holocaust by Bullets”. In my childhood that whole area was neglected.
