80 years later and where are we headed?

I met Nadia while volunteering in Poland during Passover 2022, at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nadia-not her real name-is from Ukraine. She is married with two children, a military age son and a daughter married to a military age man who have two small kids.

I met her in Lublin, at a Jewish hotel hosting many Jewish but some non-Jewish refugees. Nadia is not Jewish but participated in the Passover Seder hosted at the hotel.  There were some 80 Ukrainian refugees at this medium-sized hotel and, at the time, nearly 3 million Ukrainians were seeking refuge in Poland.

The hotel had been a yeshiva (a Jewish seminary) and was located in what had been the German-imposed “ghetto” during World War II. As was true for most of the ghettos, it was eventually liquidated and it imprisoned residents mass murdered. Of the 42,000 Jews living in Lublin at the time of German occupation only a few hundred survived.

The irony that this place, now providing desperately needed succor to victims of Europe’s worst post WII conflict, had been a vibrant center of a Jewish culture the German invaders succeeded in utterly destroying was not lost on me, and surely not on most of the Jews celebrating yet another Passover in a time of tribulation.  Some Israelis, including a youth group delegation had come to volunteer as well. I recall thinking how great it was these Israeli kids gave up the golden experience of Passover at home with their families, where they would have been presumably “safe and sound” in an Israel which at the time was experiencing relative peace and prosperity.

Nadia was in Lublin with her daughter and 2 grandchildren.  The menfolk in the family could not leave, but they had not yet been drafted.  Nadia and her daughter (a talented artist) showed no outward signs of anxiety but, as I got to know them, the concern for the family left behind was palpable.

Fast forward 3 years, to today: Nadia, a truly amazing woman, managed to gain legal entry into the UK, established herself in London, and somehow extricate her entire family-daughter, son, son-in-law and grandkids who all live together in a modest flat in London.  Nadia has learned English (she knew hardly any when we first met and, since I do not know any Slavic languages, we communicated through Google Translate), has a steady job in a restaurant and looks after her family.  It seems the only casualty of this war for Nadia’s family was her marriage — she and her husband separated.  Only her parents remain in Ukraine.  She has managed to visit them at least once that I know of.

As for me, a few months after my encounter with Nadia, her family, and dozens of other Ukrainian refugees in Lublin, I moved to Israel where I live now.  For a while I was in touch with 3 of the refugees I met in Lublin.  Today, I am only in touch with Nadia and her family.  I continue to follow with great interest and anxiety the development Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine but, obviously, since October 7, 2023, my primary attention is focused on the “7 Front” war of aggression being waged against Israel.

May 6 was Nadia’s birthday.  2 days later  (May 8,) the world commemorated the 80^th anniversary of the German surrender that ended World War II in Europe.  No country suffered more losses in blood and treasure and utter devastation than the Soviet Union.  Of all the constituent ethnic groups within the USSR, none suffered more than its Jews, especially those in Ukraine and Belarus, who, together with the Jews of Poland, formed the significant majority of the (under?) estimated 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

During World Warr II, Ukraine and Russia war part of the same country.  It is sad that 80 years later, instead of enjoying a better world where nations focus on peaceful and prosperous pursuits, the descendants of victims of Nazi Germany’s aggression continue face aggression in new forms. Now, Russia and Ukraine are at war with each other.  Many Holocaust survivors from the former USSR emigrated to what 3 years later became the State of Israel which has endured several wars of aggression and is embroiled in the latest iteration of its enemies attempt to annihilate it.

How is it that, after having 80 years to absorb the lessons of Nazi German aggression and mass genocide, we still have a monstrous imperialist dictator-Vladamir Putin-dominating the political scene and waging an imperialist war unchecked except by the brave resistance of his intended victim? And if Ukraine falls, then what?

And how is it that 80 years after the last extermination camp ceased belching through its chimneys the ashes of murdered Jews, an entire country-Iran-is attempting to “finish the work the Nazis started” and, in alliance with its proxies, destroy the only Jewish country in the world which is home to nearly half of the world’s Jewish population?  And how is that 80 years after the non-Jewish world displayed cold indifference as thousands of Jews were murdered every day for years, much of the non-Jewish world stands not only indifferent to suffering inflicted on the Jews of Israel but large numbers support the aggressors?

Today, Israel and Ukraine stand-separately and unallied-largely alone against the forces in the world today channeling the evil Nazi spirit that possessed Germany and wrought mass destruction.  Yes, the United States and some European powers have lent some support to these embattled countries, but no power has stepped up to directly confront the primary sources of the evil emanating from Moscow and Tehran. (And then there is China and North Korea to worry about).

Eventually, Nazism, together with Italian Fascism and Japanese Imperialism, were overcome.  But have we learned the necessary lessons of the indescribable ordeal to which humanity was subjected?  In his famous Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln described he American Civil War as a great test to determine whether a nation “conceived in liberty”…”can long endure.”

The wars now waged against Israel and Ukraine are also a kind of a test for the so-called “West,” really the modernized, liberal democracies of the world wherever they are (during the Cold War, also known as “the free world”). Unfortunately, there are too many voices in these countries that seek to minimize the stark reality that these 2 wars constitute military aggression and baseless ethnic hatreds.

In some quarters, all sorts of excuses are made for Putin’s naked aggression-concern over NATO expansion, Ukraine’s corruption, the existence of right wing factions, etc. –all nonsensical excuses that detract from the horrors the Russians have inflicted on Ukraine, and at the cost of tremendous loss of life on the Russian side.

And in other quarters, too many voices make excuses for the Gaza regime’s murderous onslaught that constituted a “nano holocaust” against the Jews of Israel-although many of the victims were not Jewish -in an attempt to paint Israel as the aggressor for forcefully defending itself.  Yes, this war brought more devastation to Gaza but all of the death and destruction could have been avoided if the aggression had not been committed and could have been ended any time after by the regime surrendering and returning its kidnap victims.  In 1945, very few in these same countries lamented the fact that Germany and Japan suffered more devastation than the US or the UK.  The hypocrisy directed at Israel is breath-taking, to say the least.

Will the governments who can stand up against Putin and the Ayatollahs do so? Or will those who side with warmongers prevail or at least continue to wield influence, leaving Israel and Ukraine to continue  as lone bulwarks against the new threats to today’s version of the “free world”?

Let’s hope that courage and sanity will prevail and the liberal democracies of the world will finally unite to resist modern aggression and the emergence of a new “Axis” that threatens the free world as it is today.