Mill Hill family battling to bring Ukrainian Holocaust survivor relative to UK
90 year-old Kateryna Razumenko has been sheltering at a Jewish community centre near Warsaw after fleeing heavy shelling near their home in Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
A 90 year-old Holocaust survivor who fled war-ravaged Ukraine with her disabled daughter was left stranded in a crowded refugee centre while her distraught family struggled to overcome Home Office visa complications to bring them to the UK.
Kateryna Razumenko and her 62 year-old daughter Larysa arrived at a Jewish community centre near the Polish capital Warsaw last Friday after fleeing heavy shelling near their home in Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv.
But relatives in Mill Hill East, north London, were left distraught this week as an attempt to secure the visas to bring them to safety in the UK remained in limbo due to lengthy delays at the hands of the Home Office.
On Wednesday, following a breakthrough, after UK immigration officials responded to mounting anger over the case, left the Jewish family hopeful that the nightmare ordeal for the two Ukranian refugees might be resolved.
Mill Hill family fly to Poland
Determined to bring both his grandmother-in-law and his mother-in-law back to north London, Zac Newman travelled to the Polish town of Otwock, where the pair were stranded for the past week at the Srodborowianka Jewish centre.
Since war in Ukraine broke out, the centre has been used to house hundreds of refugees fleeing the fighting across the border.
Newman told Jewish News: “I knew that I had to fly out to Poland and try and help get my family over to the UK where they can be safe.
“What went through my mind was that a member of my own family who was now 90 years old had been forced to run away from the Nazis when she was 10 or 11 years old.
“Now here she is having to run away from the Russians at this stage of her life. It’s a terrible situation.”
Newman explained how his elderly grandmother in law had never left Ukraine before and therefore had no need to ever own a passport.
Born in Kharkiv in 1931 Razumenko had earlier survived the “Holodomor” – the man-made famine that struck Ukraine in the 1930s as a result of Stalin’s forced collectivisation policy – as well as the Nazi invasion, the Second World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Newman’s mother-in-law meanwhile is registered disabled.
“They are still incredibly stressed and worried,” he said of the pair’s “horrendous ordeal.”
“Larysa is supposed to be on anti-anxiety medication, which they don’t make in Poland. Kateryna is very frail and has dementia.
“My mother-in-law is just so shellshocked.
“She keeps saying ‘oh my god’, ‘oh my god’, often cries and sometimes just stares into space. A couple of times she’s just said: ‘my home, my home’.
“She’s really struggling without her medication.
“There should be special arrangements for vulnerable people. This isn’t a completed journey for them. They can’t relax. They’re on edge. My wife and I just want them to be home with us.”
The pair had decided they had no choice but to flee their home in Kharkiv when the Russian bombing got worse.
They left for the train station carrying only a few essentials, and their much loved 15 year-old pet cat Solomon.
But if Newman expected his family members escape from the war in Ukraine and entry into the UK as refugees to be simple, he was in for a surprise.
Making enquiries he was told the first appointment he could have in Warsaw to process an application for visas would not be until Friday.
This meant it would be another week living in a crowded refugee centre before the family could find out if their application could be processed.
Boris Johnson and his government had been criticised, including by Conservative MPs, over the limitations of the UK’s family visa scheme in response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis.
The Home Office had said it has now been expanded to include more Ukrainians following the backlash – allowing those fleeing the conflict to join family members settled in the UK.
Anger at Home Office’s handling of visa application
Newman, who runs a tuition firm in the UK, told Jewish News he was left furious with the way the UK Home Office was handling applications by Ukrainian refugees attempted to gain visas to travel here.
Especially when compared to the way he witnessed other European nations such as Germany handle their visa applications from refugees camped in the same centre as his family.
“It is heart-breaking,” said Newman. “I tried on Monday, even though we didn’t have appointment, to make a visa application at the place you need to go to.
“But it was chaos there. People were waving paperwork around, pleading for help.
“My heart goes out to everyone trying to visas as refugees to be allowed to enter the UK.
“I think the process to get a visa is shocking. Yesterday at the centre we are staying at a woman from Germany came in to collect friends of hers who had crossed over the border.
“She had been told she could pick her friends up and take them back to Germany straight away. This wasn’t even someone who had family there.
“Compare that to the way a Holocaust survivor with family in the UK is being treated.
“We have really had to fight to get anything done.”
Asked what his message to the Home Secretary would be he said: “Have a heart. All of the refugees are vulnerable, but there are some who are even more vulnerable and there should be special arrangements made for them.”
Newman revealed he had decided to call up the Daily Telegraph newspaper on Monday, in order to further publicise the plight of his family.
Home Secretary Priti Patel, who had been criticised for the Home Office’s slow response to Ukrainian refugee crisis, was also contacted over the issue by Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl.
She pleaded for assistance to help speed the 90 year-old’s case up in a letter to Patel writing: “The Jewish community has been moved in particular by a case of a 90-year-old Holocaust and Holodomor survivor, who is currently living in makeshift accommodation in Poland, but whose granddaughter in London is desperately trying to bring her over to ensure that she has the care and support she needs.”
The umbrella group has also been in touch with Newman over the family crisis.
The Board’s president also criticised the speed of the UK’s refugee response to the Russian crisis.
“We strongly welcome the family sponsorship programme, the intention to establish a humanitarian sponsorship pathway and your leadership in this matter.
“Unfortunately, the current process appears to be far too slow,” she wrote in her letter to the Home Secretary.
On Wednesday morning, a breakthrough arrived when Newman was contacted by the Home Office’s immigration team, who asked his in-laws to come immediately for an appointment to get their documents approved and have their finger-prints taken.
They were told that their application, which could normally take a further five days to process could be speeded through in the next 24 hours.
But Newman said he was taking nothing for granted and in his mind the family were still “in limbo” over their visa applications.
He said his thoughts also went out to the hundreds of other Ukrainian refugees still awaiting appointments to gain visas.
Newman also revealed that back in the UK he lives in a two-bedroomed flat with his wife Katya, who once worked for the World Jewish Relief charity, and their two children.
The lack of space means that while there will be room for his in-laws at the home in the short-term, there will be a need to find accommodation for them in the UK eventually.
There was also the issue of a pet passport for Solomon the cat to be resolved over the next 24 hours – and the need to find an aircraft that would safely bring the pet over to the UK.
“Of course we will just be so so happy when my in-laws finally arrive at our home,” Newman said.
“But then, there is still so much that we will need to get sorted for them. They are arriving her without clothes, anything. And of course, they have been thorough such a horrible situation they will probably need some kind of emotional support moving forwards.
“Despite all of this – I cannot wait to bring them home to north London safely.”
The family have set up a Just Giving page to raise funds to help Larysa and Kateryna. https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/katya-newman
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