(Jewish Group)'We don't know who is alive:Concern mounts for Jews living in Russian-occupied Ukraine
Under a haze of early morning cigarette smoke, two Jewish men from Ukrainian cities in areas occupied by Russia were discussing how much they miss their parents. Neither had seen them for months and in the brief exchanges that they have had with them, they could only say so much without fear of putting them in danger.
“We can’t talk about the war,” says Moshe, who is from Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine that has been occupied by Russian troops since early in the war. “I don’t want to make things difficult for her. I think that people are listening in.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Jewish families in southern and eastern Ukraine faced a difficult choice: flee and become refugees or stay put and protect their homes. Many broke up, as elderly parents refused to or could not leave their hometowns, while their children left with the retreating Ukrainians or took steps to escape the Russian occupation and find themselves back in Ukraine.
“She doesn’t want to leave. It is not because the Russians are there now that she wants to stay,” Moshe says, clearly nervous about giving away too much information to a stranger. “She wants to stay because it is her home.”
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