ON THE COVER

continued from page 15

16 | MAY 5 • 2022

I was also busy assisting a Holocaust survivor in
getting to the dining hall for breakfast, lunch and
dinner, checking on families quarantined in their
rooms due to COVID, and many other “small”
things that were needed. Listening when there was
a need to hear, hugging when a hug was needed,
crying with those who cried and just being there
for others.
Our volunteers helped with anything they could
to assist JAFI staff and refugees: helping on the bor-
der, helping in the hotel, working with kids, staffing
the medical room and Humanitarian Aid store,
purchasing the supplies, accompanying refugees to
medical clinics and their pets to the vet appoint-
ments, ensuring those with medical needs unable
to be in the dining hall received food, organizing a
trip to a concert and a tour to the Museum of the
History of Polish Jews, taking a group of kids and
parents to a park, and so much more.

REFUGEE STORIES
All my mental and emotional preparation still did
not prepare me for the raw wave of emotion I was
hit with as refugees, mostly women with children
and older adults, shared their stories. Some of the
stories hit me in the gut, got hooked in my heart
— and it was at that point I probably realized that
I was not there just to help. We were also there to
witness. And to bring some of these stories back, so
everyone who reads it would feel that this pain and
suffering is happening in the 21st century to people
just like us.
There are people just like us who are suffering
from families being separated, killed and los-
ing everything they’ve worked for their entire
lives, whether they are fleeing Ukraine, Syria or
Afghanistan, or other war zones. Here are some of
the stories that stayed with me:
• A young woman with a 3-month-old baby and
a 7-year-old daughter from Mariupol, accompanied
by her husband’s grandmother. Her 32-year-old
husband was killed when he left the basement of
their house to get water for an elderly neighbor.
The 7-year-old doesn’t know her daddy is dead and
is waiting for him, drawing pictures for him in a
kids’ group run by a volunteer. His grandmother
came to the Humanitarian Aid store and cried on
my shoulder, saying that she couldn’t cry in front of
her grandson’s wife. Grandma raised her grandson
and was repeating, “I don’t want to live. Let them
take me instead of him.”
• An 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, who evac-
uated from Odessa in 1941 when she was 5 years
old, and now again, in a wheelchair, needing assis-
tance to get out of the room during mealtimes and

“LISTENING WHEN THERE WAS A
NEED TO HEAR, HUGGING WHEN A
HUG WAS NEEDED, CRYING WITH
THOSE WHO CRIED AND JUST

BEING THERE FOR OTHERS.”

— JFS’ YULIA GAYDAYENKO

Yuliya (center) with
fellow volunteers