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 Staff, patients and their families stay in the children's hospital bomb shelter when air raid sirens sound. (Western Ukrainian Specialized Children's Medical Center) Story credit to Friedel Liebe-Elser To view meeting: https://youtu.be/4_7kC_eZOZA July, 12, 2022 - A few months ago, when Rotarian Friedel Liebe-Elser talked to her friend Stefanie Besser in Munich, the conversation took an unexpected turn. Stephanie, who had been an editor at one of Germany’s largest publishing houses, where Friedel’s debut novel was published in the early 1990s, had recently retired from what is now Random House. But instead of Stefanie, an avid world traveler, - who had visited Friedel and her late husband in Kenya many times - sharing with her all the exciting plans she had made for this new chapter of her life, she related the story that had unfolded within two weeks of her retirement party. Another of Stefanie's long-term friends, Grisha, or rather Dr. Gregory Klymnyuk, a pediatrician & oncologist in Kyiv, had been offered by Stephanie to send his family to her, in case the Ukrainian capital was attacked by Russia. With hindsight this offer proved to be a lifesaver for Grisha’s wife Tonia and their four children, who left Kyiv and the only life they had known, within two hours on the morning after the first bombs exploded around the city, they call home. They crammed everything they could possibly fit into Tonia’s car and braved a most harrowing 5-day journey to Germany leaving Grisha behind, not knowing if they would ever see each other again. Our Club was fortunate to have Dr. Klymnyuk and his wife on zoom with us to describe his experience in Ukraine, with him talking about how his little patients survived the first military onslaught in the basement of his hospital, how he looked after them during the journey that would take them across the border and handing them over to hospitals in Ukraine’s neighbors to the West. There doctors continue their vital treatment, while Grisha returned to Kyiv, where he is still working, albeit now almost exclusively treating casualties of the raging war. |