Israel opened a critically needed field hospital yesterday in western Ukraine

[Budi]

10. More.. they are connected to the past..."All my grandparents were rounded up in the spring of 1943..

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Dr. Eduard Zalyesov was born in the contested eastern Luhansk region, a frontline of conflict with Russia since Moscow first invaded Ukraine in 2014. His sister still lives in Dnipro, and although he tries to talk to her every day, he will not see her while serving in Ukraine.

“To move around Ukraine is a little problematic,” he noted.

Nurse Sergey Mazis was born in Kyiv, but said his Ukrainian roots were not his primary motivation for joining the wartime delegation.

“Even though I was born in Ukraine, I came more out of connection to the humanitarian mission. If this were in another place in the world, I would have come,” Mazis said.

Har Even agreed that “our mission is to make sure the Ukrainian people know they’re not alone in this crisis.” He also recalled that many mission members — including his own family — have “deep roots in this land that go back many generations.

“All my grandparents were rounded up in the spring of 1943 and sent to the camps. Miraculously, they survived and here I am,” he said in remarks during the hospital’s opening ceremony.

“There are too many stories and reminders that we have a clear moral obligation not to look away.”

At the same ceremony, a Mostyska municipal official noted that Israel had many Holocaust survivors, some of whom fled from Ukraine, and lauded the fact that their descendants had now come back to Ukraine to help.

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The Israeli state field hospital is a collaborative effort of the Health Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and Sheba Medical Center, which is operating the hospital, and is funded by the government, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.