Last week, a 95-year-old woman named Mayya Gil, who had survived the Nazis, Chernobyl, and COVID, tragically lost her life after being struck by a car while crossing the street outside her Brooklyn home.

The incident occurred on Cropsey Avenue in Bensonhurst, near 24th Avenue, around 12:40 p.m. Thursday. Gil was crossing the street with her home health aide when a cargo van making a left turn collided with them, as reported by the New York Police Department.

While the health aide was hospitalized in stable condition, Gil, unfortunately, did not survive her injuries and passed away. The NYPD clarified that the driver involved in the accident was neither arrested nor charged.

Gil, a native of Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine, had moved to the country’s capital, Kyiv, with her mother and brother when she was 12 years old to escape the invading Nazis, according to a 2020 New York Times article. She would eventually meet her husband Vilyam in Kyiv and have their twin daughters while living under Soviet rule.

Then when the devastating Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in Ukraine in 1986, one of Gil’s daughters picked up and moved to New York City. Six years later, the rest of the family followed and quickly found their roots in Bensonhurst.

Larisa, the daughter who spearheaded her family’s immigration to the United States, died at the age of 58 in 2013 after a fight against late-stage pancreatic cancer. Gil’s family originally couldn’t afford a burial plot, so they were included in the New York Times’ “Neediest Case Fund” to help give Larisa the resting plot she deserved.

Gil’s husband Vilyam then passed away in 2020 after contracting COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic.

But Gil was a survivor through it all, spurred forward by her dedication to her family and involvement in the Bensonhurst community, including as an active member of the Jewish Community Center in her neighborhood, her daughter Irina Lizunova told Gothamist.

“Everybody knows her. She was a very active lady,” Lizunova told the outlet.

Gil’s granddaughter Natasha Famighetti added, “She was the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met.

“Nothing gave her more joy than just being around her family,”