Page 7 - Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukrainian President and Unlikely Hero

Chapter One

From Hometown

Boy to Popular

Comedian

In 2020 the Jewish president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelen-
skyy, traveled to Israel and met with Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. The main goal of the trip was to mark
the seventy- fth anniversary of the liberation of the World
War II Nazi death camp Auschwitz, in Poland. Zelenskyy
noted that the Nazis killed more than 1 million Ukrainian
Jews during the war.
Then the Ukrainian leader got more personal by telling his
host the wartime tale of, in Zelenskyy’s words, “a family of
four brothers.” All members of the Zelenskyy
family, they had grown up in the same Ukrai-
nian village in the early 1900s and had joined “Two years after
the Soviet army to ght the Nazis. Three of the [World War II, my
four brothers, Zelenskyy recalled, along with grandfather] had a
son, and in 31 years,
all the members of their families, “were shot he had a grandson. In
by German occupiers who invaded Ukraine. 40 more years, that
The fourth brother [Semyon Zelenskyy] sur- grandson became
vived. [Later], two years after the war, he had president [of Ukraine],
a son, and in 31 years, he had a grandson. In and he is standing
40 more years, that grandson became presi- before you today.” 3
dent [of Ukraine], and he is standing before —Volodymyr Zelenskyy
you today, Mr. Prime Minister.” 3

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