opinion
I’m Neither ‘Ukrainian’ Nor ‘German.’
But as a Jew in Germany Born in
Ukraine, I Am Trying to Help
BY IRINA ROSENSAFT
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F RANKFURT, Germany
— I was born in Ukraine
but have never considered
myself Ukrainian. My parents
had immigrated to Germany,
seeking political and economic
stability during the chaotic time of the Soviet Union’s
collapse, and I still live here, in Frankfurt.

Now, as a mother of two with a full-time job, I
spend most of my spare time trying to help the
country my family left when I was 12. Along the
way, I am also finding ways to reconcile my com-
plex Jewish identities.

Until Russia invaded Ukraine in February, I didn’t
think much about my native country.

Instead, I was focused on my family and my
career. My professional background is in con-
sulting and management; I am also a member of
the World Jewish Congress’s Jewish Diplomatic
Corps, a network of people ages 30 to 45 whom
WJC trains to influence Jewish interests through
diplomacy and public policy. Even if I hadn’t been
a member of the JD Corps, as we call it, I would
have followed the war closely and probably tried
to help. As part of the network, however, I realized
that I could do more.

Soon after the war started, I understood that
despite my complicated relationship with Ukraine,
I had absolutely no hesitation about doing every-
thing within my power to help others. And even
though WJC is a Jewish organization — it is obvi-
ously aware of Ukraine’s history of antisemitism —
the group’s leadership as well as my peers in the
JD Corps felt compelled to help everyone.

I plunged into an array of relief work, including
helping people escape Ukraine and find safe
havens that have the medical care and other sup-
port they need. With the help of WJC, I also focused
on procuring medicine, an effort inspired in part
by my mother, who has diabetes. If she doesn’t
have access to insulin, she will not survive. I do not
have a medical background, and I started to use
creative methods to secure medicine and get it into
Ukraine. At first, it seemed like I might not succeed.

It’s almost impossible for an ordinary person to buy
prescription medicine in bulk, let alone transport it.

A pharmaceutical executive told me how to buy
in big quantities, and connected me to her con-
tacts, including sellers. A doctor friend made the
actual purchase. My mother even collected extra
insulin and other medicines from her friends and
the pharmacies she patronizes.

Procuring the drug was only the first step,
however. Insulin must be stored below a certain
temperature. A biochemist who is also a pharma-
ceutical logistics professional advised me on the
logistics of how to best ship it and connected me
to her partner company, which donated a special
box for the journey. WJC put me in touch with a
Jewish communal professional, who helped me
locate a driver to transport the medicine — insu-
lin and other life-saving drugs that would last 80
people between two and three months — to Kyiv,
where the Vaad of Ukraine, the Association of
Jewish Organizations and Communities, distrib-
utes it to their affiliated organizations.

After that first shipment, we did a second one
that was logistically quite different. We soon
learned that finding a viable path one time didn’t
guarantee that it would be there the next. For the
next shipment, we are working to assemble and
transport about 1.5 tons of medicine including
heart, asthma and thyroid drugs. We’d buy the
medicine with the help of Pharmacists Without
Borders and store it in Cologne at a facility owned
by the Blue-Yellow Cross, a new organization that
collects and transports donations for Ukraine.

All this talk of storage temperatures and phar-
maceutical logistics might make this work sound
very clinical, but for me, it isn’t. It’s centered in a
web of feelings and memories and questions that
connect my past and my future, and me to family,
community and country.

Of course, I’ve been troubled by anxiety and
guilt related to my children. I’ve been online and
on the phone constantly despite their need for
attention. I have sent them to play, telling them
I needed another three minutes when I knew
that I would probably need a half-hour to finish a
phone call, and that I would then need to make
another one. I didn’t attend our community’s
Purim celebration because I received a call from
a refugee who had no food and no money. When
our second shipment was en route to Ukraine, I
stayed online on Shabbat in case there were any
problems. Yet during this time, I’ve also realized that I do
have a connection to the country of my birth.

I have remembered my hometown, Zhytomyr,
the fields full of sunflowers, the black seacoast of
Crimea. I love the Ukrainian songs of Sofia Rotaru,
and I wore vyshyvanka (an embroidered shirt
that’s part of the national costume) to sing them
as part of the school choir. I loved to visit Kyiv with
my mom. It’s true that there was antisemitism. I
grew up knowing that Jews were not fully part of
Ukraine or the Soviet Union before its collapse.

We were Jews, something apart. Not Jewish —
Jews. We left Ukraine with very mixed feelings.

As Jews, we tend to feel solidarity with people
in need. By working through some of those feel-
ings, I also found a way to identify with Ukraine,
my native country. As I learned of cities in my for-
mer homeland being destroyed, my connection to
Ukraine strengthened. I plan to learn more about
the Jewish community in Ukraine. I’ve spoken to
my parents to better understand why we left.

I still don’t call myself “Ukrainian,” but I also
have the same problem calling myself “German.”
Of course, I share the democratic values of the
German state, but I have a different culture and
customs, have another mother tongue, a complex
heritage and belong ethnically to another group
(which can be very problematic to speak about in
Germany after the Holocaust).

We all know that Jewish identity is complex.

But for now, I’m happy to help other people, set
a positive example for my children and future
generations and better understand myself in the
process. JE
Irina Rosensaft is the digital transformation lead
at the Central Welfare Board of Jews in Germany.

She is a board member of B’nai B’rith Frankfurt
and a member of the World Jewish Congress
Jewish Diplomatic Corps.

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