Sally Becker, dubbed the “Angel of Mostar” for her past humanitarian work in the besieged Bosnian city, will return to the Chechen capital of Grozny later this month to locate dozens of missing Jews there.
The 34-year-old artist, who returned to Britain last week after a 10-day preliminary visit to the breakaway Chechen republic, will be making a return mission as a voluntary emissary of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
“The agency knows that there are between 40 and 100 people missing” from among the Jews who had reportedly fled the war-torn city of Grozny, Becker said in an interview. “When I go back, I intend to conduct a house-to-house search for them.”
In December and January, the agency helped about 50 Jewish refugees who had fled advancing Russian troops emigrate from Chechnya to Israel. At the time, agency officials had estimated that some 40 Jewish families, comprising about 150 people, remained in Grozny.
Chechnya declared independence from Russia in 1991, but Russia never recognized the move. Russian troops attacked the republic this year in an attempt to reign in the rebels.
Becker said that during her efforts to help the Chechen Jew, she had met Berta- Nina Kostukova, a 57-year-old Jewish refuge from Grozny whose son and daughter- in-law are still in the Chechen capital.
“She had to move from one shelter to another after her flat was destroyed in the bombing. At one point she was very close to a tank that was destroyed,” Becker said.
“She told me that the situation now is far worse than in the second World War. There are hardly any shelters left now and there are no air-raid warnings when the Russians attack,” she said.
“Most of the Jews are old enough to remember going through the same traumas during the war. They’ve lost all their possessions, but now they want to go to Israel, despite the fact that the thought of starting all over frightens them.”
Becker said she had received the agency’s blessing to help find the stranded Jews.
When the agency’s local representative tried to reach Grozny, “he was turned back by Russian troops,” she said. She added that, through the agency, she had managed to get the names and addresses of 30 people whom she was going to try to contact upon her return.
She is also determined to help the orphans — Jews and non-Jews alike — who are roaming the streets of Grozny. “I am the only person who is taking up their cause,” she said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
