On a blustery cold morning, two rabbis, one Israeli and one American, walked together across the rough cobblestone of Yevreiski Street. They were searching Odessa for a needle in a haystack amidst the urban mazes of Odessa’s urban jungle. With the help of researchers at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s flagship Holocaust Research Center, they believed they had located the apartment of a woman they hope existed. Thus far, her identity had not been known. But thanks to a recent discovery among previously passed over files at Yad Vashem, the identity of this woman had emerged. Recent events in Ukraine necessitated the information. The ascension of a much different woman to the position of Ukraine’s first lady was worrisome, but also provided an opportunity. It was that opportunity Israeli intelligence was hoping the Holocaust researchers could offer.
For years there had been rumors about the wife of Ukraine’s president. Some said her father was a Commandant of a Nazi death camp. Others claimed he was a police captain who collaborated with the Nazis. Still others argued that he was one of the ringleaders of the Babi Yar massacre. Until now, the search for information was important, but not urgent. However, the current crisis in Ukraine made accurate information about the first lady more pressing than ever.
It had been only a few months since Ukraine’s first-ever Jewish President had been assassinated. President Vadim Krinsky had offered great hope for Ukraine’s Jews. A former television personality, he captured the spirit of all Ukrainians and was elected in a landslide. He descended from the nineteenth century timber magnate Leib Krinsky, who would later become one of Eastern Europe’s wealthiest Jews. Despite his Jewish background, Krinsky was elected with nearly seventy percent of the vote on the strength of his TV fame and charisma and a promise to rid Ukraine of corrupt politicians. Many were delighted that his focus was on cleaning up corruption at the highest levels, but some could not look past his ethnicity. From the moment he was elected, Krinsky’s opponents had mobilized their propaganda machine to delegitimize him. But he was quite popular after one year of residence in Mariyinsky Palace, and his assassination by the anti-Jewish elements in Ukraine’s power base was a devastating blow to most of the country. Clearly, some Ukrainians were not ready for a Jewish President, and when he was finally murdered, most keen observers were not surprised. Not only that, they knew that the chaos in the aftermath would also likely be blamed on the Jews for getting involved in places they didn’t belong.
While the show trial of several Security Service agents was still pending, in the halls of power in Washington and Jerusalem, the verdict was already in. When something bad happened in Ukraine, it never turned out well for the Jews. Anti-Semitic response to Krinsky’s supporters had reached a fevered pitch. Attacks on Ukrainian Jews were becoming a nightly occurrence. Venom against Jews was a constant in the news and on the streets. Krinsky’s opponents had succeeded not only in murdering him but blaming him and his co-religionists for Ukraine’s current problems. In Jerusalem, it was clear. There was no future for the Ukrainian Jewish community. Unfortunately, the government was in no mood to allow a mass exodus of its Jews to Israel. They would not be seen as capitulating to Zionist demands. Once again, the Jews in the Ukraine were caught in a crossfire.
Having made their stance on their Jewish community known, the Israeli government sought other alternatives towards freeing Ukraine’s Jews. It was for that reason that Rabbi Eli Davidow and Rabbi Eitan Groh were now trekking up three flights of stairs in one of Odessa’s most decrepit apartment buildings.
“Come on, Eitan, we are almost there,” Eli said to his partner, noting his difficulty battling the frigid conditions, both indoors and outdoors.
Rabbi Eli Davidov had been born in Odessa but moved to Israel after high school to become a rabbi and had only recently returned. He had deep contacts in the Ukrainian community. His grandparents and their entire family were slaughtered on these lands, and his family would have been completely extinct had his father not left for Palestine a decade before the Nazis invaded.
Though he was considered a brilliant Torah scholar, Rabbi Davidov had chosen a very unusual career. In Israel, his ability to speak five languages—including Russian and Ukrainian—piqued the interest of Israeli security recruiters. They were constantly scouring institutions of higher learning for anyone who could be useful to the security of the State. Because of his fiery Zionist writing and preaching along with his deep respect for the rule of the law, Israeli security officials considered him an ideal candidate for their Department for Counterintelligence and Prevention of Subversion in the Jewish Sector, otherwise known as the “Jewish Department.” When they approached him, he was all too happy to do what he could for Israel, so long as he could continue his rabbinic studies as well. For over a decade, the rabbi had gained employment as a teacher in some of Israel’s most devout and radical Ashkenazic yeshivot. He loved teaching but his real job was reporting back to his handlers any subversive planning or terror threats that were sometimes hatched inside these dens of extremism. His work was important, and occasionally his tips led to the saving of lives. But when the Mossad came to see him one day about accepting an assignment abroad, Rabbi Davidov recognized this was a chance to stare back into his own history. It was his chance to face the demons that had haunted his family for nearly a century.
“I didn’t grow up here, Eli. I will never get used to these barbaric conditions,” Eitan shouted back at his partner.
Unlike Rabbi Davidov, Rabbi Eitan Groh had spent almost his entire life living in the warmth of South Florida. He was the Senior Rabbi of Temple Brit Kodesh in Miami, Fl, and was in Odessa on sabbatical. He’d wanted to spend a few months doing something for his people. He loved his job back home but needed a break from the wealthy and comfortable community living the life of luxury in Miami Beach. It was the Jews of Ukraine that needed him now. Levels of anti-Semitism had reached proportions not seen since the Second World War. While everyone in Ukraine was fighting the Russians, its Jewish population was further threatened by growing anti-Semitism at home. The Jews of the Ukraine needed help, both physically and spiritually. And so, against the pleading cries of his wife and his Temple lay leaders, Rabbi Groh set out to do what he could to help. For the last couple of months, he had been working at the Shalva Jewish Children’s Home, where he taught in the orphanage’s high school. He also provided counsel and pastoral care to the students. Many of the high school’s seniors planned to make aliyah after graduation and join the Israeli army. Usually, a third of the graduating class would head to Israel with the intent of never returning to Ukraine. It was at Shalva that Rabbi Groh met Rabbi Davidov, and where they worked together to aid the Jewish community of Ukraine in their most desperate hour in decades. And it was the two of them that helped relocate all of Shalva’s students and staff to Romania in the days before the war began. Now with the students of Shalva safely out of the country, Eitan began working with Eli to do whatever he could to get the rest of Ukraine’s Jews to Israel as soon as possible. It was that desire to help that had led him now to this downtrodden apartment not far from the now abandoned Shalva Center.
When they reached the landing of the third floor, both men saw two doors, apartment A and apartment B. Neither had a mezuzah, nor offered any indication of who might live inside. Nevertheless, the Mossad agents working in concert with Yad Vashem researchers believed that apartment A was home to the last remaining survivor of Babi Yar in Ukraine, while apartment B housed a young couple. Eli and Eitan assumed that the man of the house was likely serving in the army somewhere, and that his wife was long since evacuated. Knocking on the door to apartment A, Eli heard no response. He knocked again, and again heard nothing.
“What do you think?” Eli said quietly to Eitan.
“We have to know who is in there. Is there a key under the mat?” he suggested.
Eli bent down and found no key but decided to knock one more time before considering another way of entry. This time he heard a voice. He could have sworn he heard a faint voice say “coming” in Yiddish. Could it possibly be? Moments later a stout woman wearing rags and tatters was standing before him. Noting Eli’s bushy beard and black hat, she immediately took him for a Jew.
“Come in,” she said. “I thought someday you would come.”