How past horrors are pushing Polish Jews to help fleeing Ukrainians

Poland, which shares a protracted border with Ukraine, has taken the brunt of the refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of their southern neighbour.

Amongst these mobilising to assist is Poland’s Jewish neighborhood.

With a not-so-distant historical past of being each displaced and in search of refuge, Jewish folks in Poland are aware of what it’s prefer to be in Ukrainians’ sneakers.

Take for instance Alina Sobczak, a pediatric emergency physician in Krakow. When she acquired a name from a colleague asking if her home was obtainable to host refugees from Ukraine, she instantly accepted.

“I didn’t understand how many individuals, I didn’t know who was arriving — I simply mentioned sure,” defined Sobczak.

Inside hours, 17 refugees had been at her doorstep, carrying the few belongings they had been capable of take with them as they fled the conflict in Ukraine.

‘You by no means know what tomorrow will deliver’

It was in 1917 that Sobczak’s Jewish grandparents fled their native Russia to Kazakhstan, the place her mom was born. From there, elements of her household had been cut up up even additional, some leaving for China and others immigrating to the US.

She explains that not an excessive amount of is understood in regards to the horrors her household confronted as a result of her grandparents refused to talk about it, whereas her dad and mom had been too afraid to ask them. It’s unclear, for instance, in the event that they fled earlier than or after the October revolution of 1917. What was clear is that her grandparents had been traumatised from the experiences that they’d.

“Each night, my grandmother would minimize bread and put it into luggage in case she wanted to run away,” Sobczak mentioned.

“I used to be raised with individuals who had the trauma of conflict. They usually at all times educated me to be glad about what you have got since you by no means know what tomorrow will deliver.”

Sobczak believes it’s each this private connection to the horrors of conflict and her exploration of the Jewish religion and theology that has led her to host these refugees in her house — a way that’s echoed by others in Krakow’s Jewish neighborhood.

Jonathan Ornstein, the manager director of the Jewish Group Heart of Krakow, has had his crew focus their vitality on turning the centre right into a donation and an info level for each Ukrainians searching for assist and Poles searching for methods to assist them.

“As quickly as we heard of the refugees crossing the border, we went to [a furniture store] and purchased a bunch of mattresses in case folks wanted to sleep within the centre,” Jonathan mentioned.

Though they haven’t had to make use of the centre as a shelter, he estimates that they’ve helped place between 40 to 50 folks in lodges and different housing.

“There’s this concept in Judaism of ‘as soon as we had been strangers’ and we’re very conscious of that,” Jonathan defined. “We’ve collective reminiscence of being ‘the opposite,’ of being strangers, and we try to do what we are able to to deal with them, each Jews and non-Jews.”

Poles worry ‘this is likely to be us’ as Russia threatens Poland, too

Prior to now weeks, the Polish authorities has come beneath criticism for what has been seen as a double commonplace in treating refugees from Ukraine versus those that arrived from non-European nations like Syria or Afghanistan.

Regardless of the federal government’s stance on the latter, Sobczak says that if she had the chance to host folks from Syria, she would have achieved it.

For the second, the variety of refugees in Sobczak’s house has gone right down to 9 folks — largely kids and moms with a number of teenage boys.

Sobczak says the kids had been simply instructed that they had been happening a visit to Poland, and he or she doesn’t imagine they totally perceive what is going on.

The youngsters however have entry to social media and proceed to observe movies of their nation being attacked by Russian forces.

Because the conflict enters its second month, the way forward for the conflict stays unsure. Sobczak says that her home will stay open to as many individuals as she will host, however she worries that with Russian threats in opposition to Poland, she too might need to flee.

“I’m additionally asking myself, possibly I will probably be in the identical scenario,” Sobczak defined.

“Hopefully not, however all of us have this worry trying on the Ukrainian refugees that possibly in a few weeks this will probably be us having to simply pack and run away to save lots of our youngsters.”