More than 100 Jewish refugee children evacuated from a foster care home in war-torn Ukraine have arrived in Berlin after making their way across Europe by bus. The youngest is only 5 weeks old.
Pale, tired and overwhelmed, the two teenagers looked around when they finally arrived in the German capital Friday morning. There were lots of police officers in front of their hotel who had cordoned off the street so the 105 children could exit their buses as Jewish women from Berlin’s Chabad community spontaneously started singing at the top of their voices to give them a joyous and relieved welcome.
“It’s been a huge challenge but with the grace of God we worked it out together to bring these precious souls into safety,” Teichtal, 49, told The Associated Press. The rabbi and a team of around 100 volunteers from the Chabad community had barely slept since they got the call for help from Odesa. “When we got on the road, we told the children that we are going on a winter trip,” said Rabbi Mendy Wolff, 25, from Odesa, who accompanied the children on the journey. “They should not feel like refugees for a single moment.”
Most of the children from the Odesa home are foster kids, some are orphans and a few are members of the city’s Chabad community who were sent out of the country by parents who couldn’t flee their homes. Not all teenagers from the foster care home could come along. Boys aged 18 and older had to stay behind as men of military age are not allowed to leave the country.
“I’m still afraid because my mother and father stayed in Ukraine, in Odesa, and all the time something happens there, and I read the news, and all the time I call them and ask, ‘What happened?’” the teenager said with a worried face. “They tell me it’s all OK because they’re my parents. That’s something not good.”“I hope to be back home in two weeks,” she said with an insecure smile.
“They will definitely stay together as one group,” Frydling added. He said the plan was to put the children up at the hotel for the first two to four weeks, and that the Chabad community had already started looking for a building where the children can live afterward.
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