97-Year-Old Who Fought Nazis Makes Aliyah

Stand for Israel  |  March 24, 2022

While our hearts break with each life lost during the ongoing war in Ukraine, they also burst with joy when we hear stories of hope and courage. One of those stories is shared by Ynet News’ Sivan Hilaie, who tells us of Jenya Bernstein, an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor who escaped the war in Ukraine aboard a Fellowship aliyah flight:

Up until a month ago, Holocaust survivor and mother Jenya Bernstein never thought she would come to Israel, but the ongoing war in Ukraine led her to seek safety and reunite with her son in the Holy Land…

Bernstein was born in a small village near Kyiv, and always insisted on helping support her household alongside her mother despite the harsh conditions. Her father passed away when she was only 17, and her mother was killed in World War II.

“Before the war, my mother went to visit relatives in Eastern Ukraine, and at the outset of the Nazi occupation, she was murdered along with all the Jews that were there. My two sisters and I were left alone,” she said.

Bernstein and her sisters fled to a remote location in Russia where she decided to take up arms and join the Red Army in fighting the Nazis…