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By: Serach Nissim
A 95-year-old woman, who had survived the Nazis, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, and the Covid-19 pandemic, was killed by a car while crossing the street. As reported by the NY Post, Mayya Gil was walking outside her Brooklyn home around 12:40 p.m. on Thursday along with her home health aide, when a cargo van took a left turn and struck them. They had been crossing Cropsey Avenue in front of Gil’s apartment in Bensonhurst near 24th Avenue, according to a New York Police Department report.
The health aide was hospitalized and is in stable condition, but Gil succumbed to her injuries and passed away. The NYPD noted that the driver was not arrested or charged.
Gil, born in Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine, had moved to the country’s capital, Kyiv, at the age of 12, along with her mother and brother, in order to escape the invading Nazis, as per a 2020 New York Times article. She eventually met her husband Vilyam in Kyiv and they had their twin daughters while living in Soviet Union. In 1986, the family survived the infamous Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, in which a reactor at the Nuclear Power Plant exploded releasing large amounts of radiation and becoming known as the worst nuclear accident in history. After that, one of Gil’s daughters moved to New York City, prompting the rest of the family to follow some six years later in 1992.
The family settled in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Mayya and Vilyam became active members and volunteers of the Marks Jewish Community House, joining social interest clubs for Russian-speaking Holocaust survivors, and volunteering on behalf of the community, energetically participating in the Marks JCH delegation at the annual Israel Day Parade, and becoming involved in the weekly Yiddish club and cultural arts performances, as per the JCH website.
Per the Post, Larisa, the daughter who had been the first to move to the United States, tragically died at the age of 58 in 2013 after a battle with late-stage pancreatic cancer. Gil’s family could not afford a burial plot at the time, so with help from the UJA Federation of NY, they were included in the New York Times’ “Neediest Case Fund” to help give Larisa a burial plot. In 2020, Gil’s husband, Vilyam, passed away after contracting the COVID-19 virus at the height of the pandemic. After 68 years of marriage, she couldn’t even say goodbye before his death. “They wouldn’t let me see him, and he was too weak to say anything on the phone,” she had said in an earlier interview with The New York Times.
Gil had survivor it all, moving forward with dedication to her family and involvement in the Bensonhurst community and as an active member of the Jewish Community Center, her daughter Irina Lizunova told Gothamist. “Everybody knows her. She was a very active lady,” Lizunova told the paper.
“She was the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met,” added Gil’s granddaughter Natasha Famighetti.
