A Jewish former US Navy doctor treating Ukrainians fleeing to the Moldovan border has described the harrowing scenes that greeted him when he arrived at the crossing point.
Dr Zev Neuwirth, who is leading a 20-strong delegation from Israeli emergency medical service United Hatzalah, said thousands are crossing each day and many are “distraught, grieving, terrified and uncertain”.
The doctor told the JC: “I don’t believe [refugees] have any expectations at all.
“For now, they just need to cross the border, come here and figure out what their next move is.”
He added: “Some have suffered minor medical emergencies. Others have chronic medical emergencies that need to be addressed.
“It’s an exceptionally volatile and fluid situation. We are doing our best to provide emotional and psychological first aid, whether it be a hug, giving a toy to a child or simply providing water and blankets. All of this is essential.”
Mr Neuwirth spoke of the challenges of coping with people fleeing who had existing medical conditions. He said:
“When you are uprooted from your home at a moment’s notice, you are taking a minimal amount of belongings with yourself. Their situations can really deteriorate if they don’t get their medicine, whether it be for diabetes or heart conditions. And especially when you are waiting 10 to 20 hours to get through a border crossing. Preventing those situations turning into medical emergencies is a vital part of our work here.”
A second team is on standby in Israel ready for dispatch should the situation continue to escalate and Dr Neuwirth said Hatzalah could set up a permanent base there.
Moldova’s Jewish community greeted the Israeli delegation enthusiastically and invited its members to two weddings held last Sunday, according to logistics coordinator Yossi Kletzky.
“We travelled a long way to get here, by air and by land, to provide medical assistance and humanitarian relief in Moldova. We found ourselves among members of the Kishinev community as well as many displaced Jewish refugees who were so happy to see that we came for them from Israel to help them,” he said.
Moldova’s tiny Jewish community joined the efforts to care for displaced persons, with local shul Agudath Israel revealing on Tuesday it was caring for 190 who had fled Odessa and Uman. It is expecting another group of 150 refugees from Kyiv, Odessa and Zhytomyr.
Footage shared by the community last week showed a crowd dancing and singing under a chuppah to celebrate the union of two refugees from Ukraine.
“It was an unusual and special day at Agudath Israel in Moldova — refugees, chuppah, headquarters of help — all in one,” it wrote on Facebook.
Meanwhile, a Jewish Agency spokesperson said last Saturday it would open six aliyah processing stations along Ukraine’s borders with Poland, Moldova, Romania and Hungary.
The NGO had been operating a station in Lviv that it later moved to the Polish side of the border. It was “expecting a significant wave of immigration in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine”, the spokesperson said.
A “complex” operation at the weekend saw the first group of olim cross Ukraine’s border with Poland. The group was housed in a hotel in Warsaw ahead of their flights to Israel, where they were due to receive temporary housing with help from the government, the spokesperson added.
