Against the Mafia
From the Memoirs of Rav Moshe Fhima
Ukraine has always been a place where one has to be careful with what he does and what he doesn’t do.
This next story is related to a boy named Dima. The boy had studied at our school and we had sent him off to Israel. Her mother at that time had wanted to show us gratitude for helping her boy, but at that time she was very poor. So by way of a gift she presented me with an apple. One apple. I suppose it was from her own tree but this one apple to me was so precious that I kept it in my car for months. I remember that it was there for maybe three months and never went rotten. I myself never had the heart to eat it but one day someone got in my car and was hungry and ate it and that was all.
A few months after we had sent Dima off to Israel there was a knock on my door at three in the morning. It was Tatiana, the boy’s mother and she was very frightened and looking all around to see if someone was chasing her. I pulled her into the house, sat her down in the kitchen, offered her a cup of tea and asked her what she was doing here at such a time in the morning. She said that she had a real problem and that I might be the only one she knew who could help.
“My husband has been involved with the mafia.” I nodded at her, thinking that this was not such an unusual thing for Ukraine at this time. “He had thought to start a business but didn’t have the money and went to one of the big shots for a loan. And with his luck…”
“He lost the money.”
“He lost the money.”
“How much money does he owe?”
“$70,000.” I nodded again. Now, there was no way I wanted to get involved with the Ukrainian mafia and there was absolutely no way that I could even think about playing with $70,000. I started to think really hard about this situation but she spoke up again and told me some more details.
“I warned him several times not to get involved. I told him he was unlucky and that he was never serious and that there would be trouble. But he really thought he could do something.”
“Well, I really do not have that kind of money to…”
“You don’t understand. I don’t want your money, I need your help! They just came to the house an hour ago. They held him by his ankles our over the balcony. We live on the sixth floor. And they were telling him that if he doesn’t pay the money back within 24 hours, they were going to come and take me and my daughter as hostages. Please HELP ME! Help me get out of here. I know that my husband doesn’t really care about me. He’s a drinker; all he cares about is drinking and money. We are going to get killed or worse because of him and just want to make sure that the children are safe. Please, he wouldn’t even think twice to try and save us.”
So here was a different story. I didn’t really want to get involved because if the Ukrainian mafia found out about me, I would be in a pickle also. But her children were involved and this would mean eventually Dima as well. So what to do?
I had a second apartment that I felt was a secure place and that nobody knew it was mine. I gave her the keys telling her to go there and lock herself in.
“Go to this place tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock. Don’t tell anyone where you are going and don’t speak to anyone on the way. I will be there within two hours by about one and we will take it from there.”
I gave her the “sign”: Two knocks, four knocks and one knock to let her know it was me. "However, in the meantime, get you things in order; get your passport and all of your papers for you and your daughter and we will see what we can do.”
The next day at one I showed up, gave the sign and went into the apartment. She was even more frightened than the day before.
“They came again this morning to remind us about the time. They said there was only 12 hours left. You don’t know how they were looking at us. What can we do?”
Well, I had do some thinking. In Ukraine, there is no place to hide because the mafia and the police are all connected. And of course everyone is interested in everyone else’s money so eventually, anywhere she tried to hide in the country, they would find her. And so the only choice was to try and get out.
A couple of months earlier, I was offered a job in Moldava in Kishenov. I had traveled to Kishenov from Kiev via Odessa and had remembered that the border guards there loved getting bribes. So if anywhere was going to be the place that had to be it.
So I told her the plan. “Get your things and your daughter, pack light, and sleep here tonight. Tomorrow, at exactly 12 noon, you are going to be at one metro stop and your daughter is going to be at the next. There will be four cars coming down the street at that time: A minivan, a little car, another minivan and another little car. I will be in one of the cars, you get into the first minivan, and when this motorcade comes by, your daughter should get into the second minivan. And remember to dress so that no one should notice your face.” And this is what we did.
For myself I took four sets of clothes. At the time I was clean shaven so it was a little easier to fit in. When I got into the first car, I was dressed as a religious Jew, but as we were driving I changed into jeans and a t-shirt.
After we picked up the mother, I changed again, this time into slacks and a sweater for when I picked up the daughter. We then around Kiev for an hour or so to make sure that we were not being followed and finally, when we felt we were clear, we started of for the border near Odessa.
When we got close to taking the turn, we noticed that though most of the cars around us were flying, there was another car that slowed down with us. We though for sure that that was it. In fact it wasn’t, but in the moment, we thought we had better split up so that at least some of us would get away. We each had radios in the car and so we put our heads together and decided to each go a different way, keep moving around the city and that we should meet at about one in the morning at the crossing.
Finally the time came to try and go across to Moldova. I had changed into a suit and tie this time, trying to look like a sharp professional type. And when it was our turn to across, I got out of the car, smiled, pulled out a wad of hundred dollar bills and “shook hands” with everyone there. After then, not that we were all friends, I said that they could register me going across, but perhaps they didn’t need to notice any of my friends. I was told that this was no problem.
And so we all got back in the cars and drove over to Moldovan border and found that they had already heard that we were coming and were waiting to make friends as well.
However, when I tried to make friends in the Ukrainian style, the first guard shook his head at me. “No, no, no. We are not appreciating this. I don’t know who you think you are, but things do not work this way in Moldova.” Or words to that effect. And so, understanding his meaning, I offered two hundred dollars each and immediately found that I had made another group of friends. At any rate, we were now out of Ukraine.
So we drove over to Kishenov and found the Israeli embassy and explained to them the situation. The embassy people were not unsympathetic, but it took a couple of days for them to come to believe that these were really Jewish people and that they really wanted to go to Israel and that it was not a bad idea to let them. Eventually though they did decide to help, and the visas and travel were arranged under different names. And I am happy to say that all three are now living in Israel happily as a good Jewish family.
As for the father, well, that is a completely different story. I suppose the mafia folks thought that he had some use for them and decided to take him and let him work off the money rather than throwing him over the balcony. From what news we have gathered, if he lives through it, he is looking at about ten years before this will happen. But in any case, The mother and the kids are free from all of this and that’s what it is all about.