"They had no plan A or plan B" in Chernobyl, said "liquidator", now in Israel

The broadcast of HBO's historical drama about the disaster at the Chernobyl Power Station in 1986 drew attention to immigrants from Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union who were victims of Israel.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl No. 4 nuclear reactor overheated and broke up during a steam explosion, followed by a fire in an open-air reactor. Large amounts of radiation have been emitted into the atmosphere, contaminating the surrounding areas, including the water supply of the city of Kiev. Estimates vary according to the number of victims and, while dozens of people were killed in the initial disaster, thousands more would have died as a result of health problems caused by radiation exposure. .

The Soviet authorities recruited hundreds of thousands of people, known as "liquidators", to help with efforts to contain the disaster, without immediately ordering evacuations from the affected communities. The spread of radiation was so strong that it triggered alarms all over Europe, including a nuclear power plant 1,000 kilometers away in Sweden. The reactor building was finally sealed in a giant steel and concrete sarcophagus.

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Several thousand people living in the affected areas then immigrated to Israel. Among them, about 5,000 people were recognized as neutralizers of the Chernobyl disasters – the "liquidators" who helped to cope with the emergency and contain the reactor. Of these, 1,300 to 1,500 are still alive.

Lev Klotz, 52, now lives in Moshav Givati. He was 18 years old at the time and was a newly recruited young soldier serving in combat engineering. With the rest of his unit, he was sent to Chernobyl six days after the disaster to work on the removal of debris.

He spent about a month on the site. In an interview with Israeli channel Channel 12 on Thursday, although they were about 30 kilometers from the factory, they spent four hours a day in the devastated factory. Inside armored vehicles, deploying robots and using "other techniques".

Although they received protective clothing and masks, "I do not know how good they were," he said.

Klotz stated that he had lost his hair and that all his teeth had fallen at the age of 22 years. He added that the authorities "did not have plan A or plan B … We were learning what to do en route".

A few years later, when he read more and found out what had happened, Klotz realized that the authorities had lied about what was happening at that time , without being surprised. "Anyone who was once a Soviet man knows it: we lived in a lie."

In an interview with the daily Haaretz, Klotz said that at the end of their mission, officials had officially estimated that his unit had absorbed 25 rems, the maximum radiation authorized by the authorities. Klotz, however, said that they had in fact absorbed this amount several times.

Klotz received two medals for his service to Chernobyl and one of them for an act of bravery. He said he saved two of his comrades – one of them died shortly after his military service and another ten years later. "A horrible death, a lot of suffering," said Klotz. "I think maybe if I had not saved them then, they would have died immediately, without suffering so much."

A few years after the disaster, he moved to Israel where he needed considerable medical treatment, including multiple blood transfusions.

He told Channel 12 that he also had "a lot of reserve service" in the Israeli army and that there was no possible comparison between the two. In the former Soviet Union, he said, "the life of a soldier, that of a man, is not taken into account. It's very different. "

Klotz described the HBO series as "excellent" and is said to be surprised by the accuracy of the even minor details of the American drama. "I did not think Americans could fix even the little things," he said.

Yelena Artyomenko, who lived in Kiev with her family at the time of the disaster, and who had a 12-year-old daughter and a little boy, told Haaretz that she was still haunted by "stress, fear and fear." terror you rest. "

Artyomenko, who is now living in Haifa, recalled that a few days after the disaster of April 26, 1986, although a fire was reported to Chernobyl, health officials assured residents that they could still go out with children. On May 1, International Labor Day, protests took place despite heavy radiation contamination on the streets.

The surviving liquidators are entitled to an annual stipend of about 5,700 NIS ($ 1,590 USD), reported Haaretz.

In 2001, Israel legislated for Chernobyl liquidators to be recognized, passing a law granting them the right to social housing, a one-time grant and treatment as a special medical facility supposedly created for that purpose.

According to former Knesset member Ksenia Svetlova, the law has not been enforced. On December 17, 2018, the High Court of Justice ruled that the government should provide the "liquidators" with a medical center and other rights provided for by law, but the April elections, the dissolution of the Knesset and the dissolution of the Knesset have not progressed. planning new elections for September 17 after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a majority coalition.

In an editorial published Thursday in the Times of Israel, Svetlova wrote: "Unlike the characters in the television series, the liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster are real people, in the flesh. I only hope that the renewed interest in the greatest ecological catastrophe of the twentieth century will cause the media to focus not only on the horror stories of two-headed hens and prematurely lost teeth, but also on the real life of 1,500 people. The Israelis who live here. " She concluded by saying, "They need our practical assistance in home care and medical treatment, and they deserve it."