95-Year-Old Who Survived Nazis, Chernobyl, COVID-19, Run Over By Van In Brooklyn

A 95-year-old woman, who survived some of history's most catastrophic events, died last week after she was hit by a vehicle in Brooklyn, New York, the Gothamist reported. 

Mayya Gil survived the Nazis' invasion of Ukraine, the Chernobyl disaster, and COVID-19. On Thursday, Ms Gil, accompanied by her home health aide, was crossing the street near 24th Avenue when the van turned left and hit them. 

While the health aide was hospitalised and is now stable, Ms Gil succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver was not arrested or charged, said the New York Police Department.

“She was a very active lady,” her daughter, Irina Lizunova, shared with Gothamist. “Everybody knows her.”

Her granddaughter shared, “She was the kindest, most generous person I've ever met. Nothing gave her more joy than just being around her family.”

Born in Khmelnytskyi, a town in western Ukraine, Ms Gil moved to Kyiv with her mother and brother when she was 12 to escape the Nazis. It was there that she met her husband, Vilyam, and they had twin daughters. 

The family lived through the Soviet regime and witnessed the horror of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Following the disaster, Ms Gil's daughter, Larisa, moved to New York City, eventually bringing the entire family over. They settled in Bensonhurst, where they built their new lives in the US.

In 2013, she lost her daughter Larisa to pancreatic cancer. The family couldn't afford a burial plot, but Larisa's final resting place was made possible through The New York Times' “Neediest Case Fund.”

In 2020, Ms Gil's husband, Vilyam, also died after contracting COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic. “They wouldn't let me see him, and he was too weak to say anything on the phone,” she recalled in an earlier interview with The New York Times. After 68 years of marriage, they couldn't say goodbye before his death.

Mayya Gil was deeply involved in her Bensonhurst community, where she was known as an active member of the Jewish Community Centre.