Europe has never been the best place for the Jewish people. Roman arenas, ethnic cleansing, Crusades, Inquisitions, pogroms and fascism have always turned on convenient excuses to cover up greed, government corruption or internal economic failures. Jews have always been targets because of their refusal to compromise their covenant. But they always survive because of that covenant and its Maker. The dissolution of the fearsome USSR in the 1990's brought about changes in what had been 18 “republics” held in place by a huge Soviet Army that could invade and take over on a 24 hour schedule and internal security systems that kept minorities in check. Today a resurgent Russia is attempting to remake an empire that once kept a world in tense peace and a MAD (mutual assured destruction) type of insurance policy. Many of the republics are seeing old antagonisms revived and many which were significant in the 1941-45 conflict are re-emerging in the confusion. Ukraine is a current example.
http://www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com/israelnews/emergency-exodus-fleeing-persecution-in-ukraine/
