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Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began late last month, the United Nations estimates that over 2 million people have fled the country.
Two of those people, Lasia Orshoko and Alona Chugai, have found refuge in Israel with a woman whose bond with the pair's family stretches back to World War II.
The Jewish Press reported this week that during the Holocaust, a young Jewish girl named Fanya Bass was hidden from the Nazis by Maria Blishchik in Ukraine.
Orshoko and Chugai are Maria Blishchik's granddaughters and it was Fanya Bass' granddaughter, Sharon Bass, who arranged to welcome the pair to Israel over the weekend amid the unrest.
Sharon told Israel's Channel 13 News that it was her grandmother's wish that her family would take care of the family that saved her.
"Now it's more important than ever in light of the terrible situation there," Sharon said as translated from Hebrew.
In 2015, the Pew Research Center reported that in 1939 there were 16.6 million Jews worldwide with 9.5 million of them residing in Europe. By the end of World War II, in 1945, the Jewish population of Europe was reduced to just 3.8 million of the world's 11 million Jews.
As the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, President Vladimir Putin claimed his reasoning for ousting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as wanting to "denazify" the nation. Zelensky is Jewish as well as the grandson of a man whose family was murdered by the Nazis, Newsweek reported.
Thomas Graham, distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and co-founder of the Russia, East European, and Eurasian studies program at Yale University, told Newsweek that this justification seems to "recycle anti-Nazi narrative" used during WWII when Russia was victorious over Nazi Germany.
During the Holocaust, Orshoko's and Chugai's grandmother hid Fanya in a forest for a whole year, Channel 13 reported.
Now, 80 years later as the region faces another war, Fanya's granddaughter is doing her part to help the family that saved her grandmother all those years ago.
Chugai told Channel 13 that though fighting had not reached the city where they lived, they could hear "booms" as well as sirens throughout the night and morning.
Sharon said she and the women were in contact after the war broke out and made the decision together to have them travel to Israel.
"The connection with them is so strong that our home is their home like theirs is ours," Sharon said.
She told Channel 13 that she believes her grandmother had a hand in how everything turned out and making sure the women arrived in Israel safely.
"We went to her grave and asked her to help," Sharon said, translated from Hebrew. We asked her to protect them. I'm sure there was a directing hand."
