I am currently in a car in Poland on the way to the border to see and visit the refugees as they cross the border from Ukraine into Poland. I just visited a hotel in Warsaw that is full of refugees and now I’m going to see how they come over the border.
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In the meantime, we are continuing our hatzolah work in Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine. Today, four busses left from Kyiv. Two left from the shul and two left from our assisted living home.
Today, we made the very big decision to move the elderly people in the assisted living home in Kyiv since it was too much of a danger for us to wait any longer. We decided that we had to get them out now.
Also today, we began renting a camp near Munkatch in western Ukraine, and that is where we took the elderly people from the assisted living home. We also are taking people there from our camps in Premishlan, Belz and Yampoli. These are all refugees who can’t or don’t want to leave the country right now. The new camp has 350 beds. It is a huge undertaking to get everyone there and to run the camp, but we hope it will be a good place for the refugees to continue putting their lives back together as much as possible under the circumstances in which they are living. We want them to feel that they are able to have a semblance of a normal, Jewish life, and not like they are only refugees.
Help Us Continue To Save Lives
All of the people who came to the border today got through, boruch Hashem, and we are currently working on continuing this lifesaving work. I want you to know that I am getting calls every few minutes from people all around the world who are crying that they have relatives in Ukraine that they can’t get out. Tomorrow, two busses will be leaving from Niezhin, in addition to the busses leaving Kyiv, like they have been doing every day. People are also begging us to arrange for busses to get people out of other places like Chernikow, but it is simply too dangerous to do that right now. I feel that now is a time that we can work to save lives. We have an opportunity that may not be available much longer. We have to chap arein to do the best we can to save as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.
The expenses are building up exorbitantly. We are spending upwards of $200,000 a day to save people and take care of refugees. I ask everyone to please give what they can to help us save lives and make the refugees feel better and more at home until will be able to bring them to a safe place to continue to rebuild lives.
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Monday Evening, March 7
Rescue efforts are continuing frantically. Many people have made it out of imminent danger, but many are still trapped and waiting for our help.
This morning, a bus that left Kyiv arrived at the border city of Koson. The bus made good time and arrived early. There was somewhat of an issue because the people who were supposed to meet them were not expecting them that early and were not there to greet them. They are in a safe and warm place where they can take shelter as they wait for the bus that will take them further.
Two busses left Kyiv at 1 pm, headed towards the border. They managed to escape from the bombing of the city thanks to everyone’s support.
We have begun working on an alternative to the three refugee camps we currently have in operation in Western Ukraine. Right now, we have camps in Premishlan, Belz and Yampola. Because the refugees are so spread out, it is difficult to maintain all the camps, with people coming and going at all times. We are working on obtaining one place where we can house 350 people and care for them all together. We hope that will work out by Tuesday.
THESE YIDDEN ARE COUNTING ON US!!
The remaining members of the yeshiva and Kollel in Kyiv also left today in three busses and a van. They were evacuated from the shul and took a Sefer Torah with them and joined the rest of the yeshiva in Premishlan. They will hopefully soon be moving to the new camp once it is ready for them.
Also today, some people went back to the first refugee camp near Kyiv to get out the Sifrei Torah and whatever else they were able to salvage to bring to the three camps in the west.
We are currently working on finding volunteers and workers to come to the refugee camps that have been set up in Moldova under Rabbi Saltzman and the camp that is being set up in Poland. Like the camp in Moldova, the camp in Poland will be equipped with kosher food, minyanim, etc., and will feel like a real Jewish atmosphere.
We are also working all day today on evacuating a group of Jewish people stuck in the city of Yarpen, which is outside of Kyiv. That city is being systematically destroyed and bombed by Russia and there are people there – including people from our community – who needed to be rescued. We did manage to evacuate one Israeli student today who had been stuck there. He managed to crawl out through the woods, accompanied by some people we had hired to go in there get him out. The same people are working on getting out other members of our community and we hope that tomorrow they will be able to take out more people.