The children were very frightened, so they prayed. I have never heard the prayer ‘Shema, Israel’ recited with such force… The car itself vibrated! The driver said that with such prayers he himself would become a Jew
My 10 year old daughter passed out because of the stress
By nightfall we reached the border with Moldova. The bus, which transported my parents, was able to cross the border, while my children and I had to get out of the car and walk across.
Each of the children carried two backpacks, the eldest, Dora, carried the baby, and the little seven-year-old Khaya dragged a bag of diapers. Everyone shlepped something. We found ourselves alone on the pedestrian crossing at Mogilev-Podolsk. As soon as we got onto the bridge, the sirens began to wail and the children immediately burst into tears. I told them: “You can scream and cry as much as you like, just run and don't stop!” So we ran across the bridge: screaming children all dragging things and me at the end with suitcases completing the chain. It was when we reached the Moldovan side at the center for refugees, that my 10 year old daughter, Batel, passed out from stress. Moldovans are amazing people, with big and generous hearts; they calmed the children down; a policeman came up to Batel, hugged her and told her that she was safe and everything would be fine, she was protected.
We were taked into a warming room with food and drinks. A volunteer came up and offered us food, but I explained that we keep kosher. He himself turned out to be a Jew. “I understand the situation,” he said, and showed a photo of his children. He helped us a lot. A lot happened without my asking: someone replaced the SIM card in the phone, someone brought water, someone brought something to calm to nerves, etc. Then we were fed lunch in a synagogue in Kishinev and transported to a hotel outside the city. As there were no flights from Moldova, we traveled by car to Romania, after which, by plane to Israel.