A heartbreaking tragedy was uncovered in Kyiv on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, when a Holocaust survivor born in the city was found frozen to death in her apartment amid an intense cold spell gripping Ukraine.
Yevgenia Mikhailovna Bespamilnaya was discovered only after a burst water pipe in her apartment caused flooding throughout the building, with ice spreading across multiple floors as temperatures plunged to minus 18 degrees Celsius. According to reports, residents pressed police to force entry into the apartment, where Bespamilnaya was found lifeless in a completely frozen home. Authorities believe she had died several days earlier.
Bespamilnaya survived the Holocaust in Ukraine as a child. After the war, she was sent to an orphanage, where she was given her surname, meaning “without family.” She lived alone with no known relatives and spoke only Yiddish and Russian. Neighbors knew her as Baba Zhenya and described her as a quiet, withdrawn woman who rarely opened her door but made a point of attending the nearby shul.
Residents of the building said that in recent weeks they had tried to look after her, bringing basic supplies and offering assistance whenever possible. When she stopped answering phone calls and was not seen for several days, concern for her safety grew, but it was only the flooding incident that ultimately revealed what had happened.
The tragedy unfolded against the backdrop of a harsh winter in Kyiv, marked by unusually severe cold waves, infrastructure damage, and prolonged outages of electricity and water. In a cruel twist of fate, Bespamilnaya, who survived the horrors of the Holocaust, died alone decades later in the freezing cold of the city where she was born.
{Matzav.com}
Dr. Esi Sharon, the dentist who confirmed the identity of the last fallen hostage, Ran Gvili Hy”d, shared a powerful account of the experience in an interview with Yedioth Acharonot, describing the intense emotions surrounding the moment he was identified.
Recalling the instant she saw the first photograph, Dr. Sharon said, “When I opened the image that they say sent me from the open grave, I shouted, ‘It’s Rani, it’s him.’ I yelled to the doctor to enter the grave and pull out the body for final identification, which would determine with certainty that he returns home to his family, but inside I already knew. The initial image they sent me was enough for me to conclude that it was Rani. I knew his dental records and their identifying marks by heart. My entire body shook from excitement.” Dr. Sharon serves as commander of the Dental Volunteer Unit within the Police Forensics Department.
She went on to explain how the identification effort unfolded on the ground. “The engineering vehicle operators began to dig holes together with soldiers from the Search Unit, and the dentists entered them to take photos and initial identification. After some time, [pictures of] bodies that the dentists photographed while still in the graves and sent us began to accumulate. Through that method, throughout the night, we ruled out 200 bodies whose graves were opened.”
Since the outbreak of the war, Dr. Sharon has worked alongside fellow dentists and forensic professionals to identify hundreds of victims of the Hamas massacre. Under her leadership, the unit successfully identified every deceased hostage whose remains were returned from the Gaza Strip.
During the mission to recover Ran Gvili, a team of 20 dentists examined roughly 250 bodies in a period of less than 24 hours, completing the painstaking process under extreme pressure and time constraints.
{Matzav.com}
One day after the body of Rani Gvili, who was killed in the Gaza Strip, was returned to Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and the government’s Coordinator for Prisoners and Missing Persons, Gal Hirsch, delivered statements to the media addressing the ongoing war, the hostages, and Israel’s next steps.
Netanyahu focused on Israel’s objectives in Gaza and described what he called the essential components of victory. “The complete victory depends on three things-returning all our hostages, dismantling Hamas and its weapons, and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip. Yesterday, we completed the first task.”
Turning to Israel’s plans for Gaza after the fighting, the prime minister drew firm red lines. “We will not allow Turkey to enter Gaza. We will not establish a Palestinian state in Gaza. Israel will maintain security control over the entire area of Gaza.”
Addressing regional threats, Netanyahu warned Iran against any escalation. “The Iranian axis is trying to recover, but we will not allow it to do so. If Iran makes a grave mistake and attacks Israel, we will respond with a force that Iran has never seen before.”
Hirsch spoke emotionally about the cost of the effort to recover hostages and the scale of the losses. He acknowledged the extent of behind-the-scenes work that remains largely unknown to the public, saying, “In Israel, they don’t know everything you did. He helped bring people from Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Venezuela.”
Reflecting on those who were murdered in captivity, Hirsch said, “87 of the kidnapped were killed. I remember them one by one, names and faces, love their families, and am tormented and pained by the terrible suffering and loss.”
Overcome with emotion, he described the personal toll of the mission. “This was the hardest task of my life. It’s not a holiday, but it’s a painful and also a happy day.”
Later, Netanyahu was asked whether national elections would proceed as scheduled amid the political crisis surrounding the conscription law. “That is my hope and aspiration. We need stability, and the last thing Israel needs is elections.”
He was also questioned about preparations for a possible confrontation with Iran and the role of the United States. “President Trump will decide what he decides, and the State of Israel will decide what it decides. We are prepared for any scenario, but I said the main thing here. If Iran makes the mistake and attacks us, it will receive a response it cannot even imagine.”
Netanyahu disclosed challenges Israel faced earlier in the war, including shortages of military supplies. “At a certain point in the war we didn’t have enough ammunition, and soldiers fell. Some of this loss of ammunition also came as a result of the embargo – this changed beyond recognition with the entry of President Trump.”
He concluded by outlining a long-term vision for Israel’s defense independence. “But we have reached security maturity – we must have an independent arms industry. And I intend within a decade to completely free ourselves from the financial component of American security assistance, which currently stands at $4 billion. I want us to move relations with the US from aid relations to cooperation relations – joint investments, joint development and production.”
{Matzav.com}
