Noam was shaken after hearing of the events of those two days in September 1941 at Babi Yar, and Vera’s story from Paris. He was familiar with the “Baby Killer” and had sadly heard many stories similar to the one he had just heard. Nevertheless, his stomach was beginning to turn, and a wave of nausea passed over him.
“This is just too incredible,” Noam said. “The Baby Killer was in Paris the whole time, and we never found him. That bastard. Hiding in plain sight.”
Eitan nodded in agreement and continued. This was his first high-level meeting with an Israeli intelligence official, but he set his nerves aside and rose to the occasion. “The silver lining,” he began, “is that his granddaughter helped him. Lany Boyko, better known as Ulyanna Kovalenko. None other than the first lady of Ukraine. Someday someone will have to explain to me how the wretches of the earth always find their way into power.”
“This is a stunning discovery,” Noam exhorted, still angry that Boyko managed to escape Israel’s clutches. How despicable that he was able to live out the rest of his life in the comforts of the French capital.
“It is,” Eitan agreed. “If it wasn’t true, it certainly would not be believable. But it is true, and Vera has been harboring the secret of that funeral for the last sixty years. The first lady of Ukraine today is the Jew-hating granddaughter of one of Ukraine’s most sadistic war criminals.”
“Amazing, but how and why did Vera come back to Ukraine?” Noam inquired.
This time Eli spoke up. “I asked her that same question. She told me that after Boyko died, there was no job for her. She could not have handled returning to that place anyway. She was sick to her stomach knowing whom she had been working for. She knew she didn’t want to clean houses anymore, but there were really very few options for her. At the same time, Rivka was never fully comfortable in France and wanted to return home. They carried on for a few more years, but ultimately they learned of a Jewish orphanage opening in Odessa that needed women who could teach the children and serve as mother figures to them. Since neither of them had any children of their own, they thought this would be a good opportunity to try to make a new life for themselves in Odessa. They came back, and the positions at the orphanage suited them. They tried to put Paris behind them, and, wanting to move on from the war once and for all, they never told this chapter of their story to anyone.”
“Well, it’s time for that secret to come out into the open, for the world to know who Ulyanna Kovalenko really is. And it might just be our chance to finally get leverage with the Ukrainian government,” Noam responded with determination.
Eli and Eitan knew that delivering this report to Noam was their contribution to the mission. Noam traditionally would take his intelligence reports back to his colleagues. Any plan of action would then be coordinated without Eli’s knowledge. Often he would never learn what had become of the characters that he investigated. This time though, if they were successful, the whole world would learn what they’d discovered. Soon every newspaper and every television news station on the planet would be reporting that the granddaughter of the Baby Killer, one of the most notorious Nazi butchers in Eastern Europe during the war, just happened to be the wife of the president of Ukraine.
The very next day Noam, Eli, and Eitan boarded a private plane that brought them to Israel. Noam needed Eli and Eitan to give the same report they had given him to his superiors in Jerusalem immediately. All El Al flights out of Ukraine had been cancelled indefinitely in protest of Ukraine’s recent treatment of its Jewish citizens. Talks between Kiev and Jerusalem were essentially nonexistent. Pietor Kovalenko, the president of Ukraine, had grown tired of hearing from Israeli Prime Minister Lazar and refused to take his calls. Nevertheless, President Kovalenko continued to be reminded of his country’s anti-Semitic scourge by officials in the White House. Their calls he could not ignore.
The flight to Ben Gurion Airport was made possible by an Israeli media tycoon who often lent his aircraft to Israeli intelligence officials. Only one other passenger was joining them on the flight that morning. It was an old woman from Odessa with quite a story to tell. She had a strong desire to finally leave the cursed, blood-soaked land of her birth for the final time. Now, thanks to the government of Israel, she would have the opportunity to live the rest of her life being pampered at one of Israel’s most luxurious senior living facilities.
She had never had any desire to relive her past. But until now, no one had ever offered her a remedy for the nightmares that Lany’s smug look at her grandfather’s funeral had left behind. Now, as her days were reaching their final chapter, she was determined to do what she had not been capable of doing in her youth. This time, when the Ukrainian oppressors came for her people and threatened them once again, she would do whatever she could to stand up for her people. If not for herself, for all those who never had such an opportunity.