Help Karolina help Ukrainian refugees
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Millions of people across Europe - and especially in Poland - have mobilized to help the millions of refugees escaping Putin's war. Most are arriving exhausted, destitute, with nothing more than a suitcase. It's primarily women and children, as the men have stayed behind to fight. The children arrive traumatized; some have already lost members of their families.
Many of you have asked Pat and me how you can help. We have shared links to various organizations, and many of you have already donated. One of the challenges seems to be that the NGOs in Poland are small and overwhelmed. But there is an inspiring and unprecedented grassroots effort by ordinary people volunteering their homes, money, cars, time, anything. One of them is one of my dearest and oldest friend, Karolina. As I'm typing this, she is driving a rented bus to a house outside of Warsaw, where she found space for 9 kids and 4 women who needed housing. My brother Maciek has already raised and sent her 6,710 Euros, which went to buying clothes, renting rooms, food, fuel, medical help, and even a cremation (more on that below). She has boundless energy, a giant heart, and has already drained her own finances, so we are helping her raise more. Rather than trying to explain the details ourselves, we are letting her speak for herself. I have translated and pasted her messages to me, with a quick intro for you below:
"Hi. My name is Karolina. I live in Warsaw, and I work for a CSR (corporate social responsibility) department at Allegro, a Polish “Amazon”. I’ve known Gosia since we were kids. I’ve worked in the non-profit sector all my life. But I was never ready for what came 13 days ago.
It’s been only 13 days but I could write a book already. Only if my mind was not on overdrive and only if I was managing to get more sleep.
Warsaw is chaos. Every train that pulls into the central station brings 5,000 people. Women and children, some elderly. One woman who arrived with 3 kids spent 3 days at the station in one spot, crying non-stop. She would not move an inch and could not stop crying. A psychologist came to help. I can’t get her face out of my memory.
Monday, 6am, I get a call from our informal help network that there are two families standing at the West Station, who can't go anywhere. I call the city. No help. The city was still completely overwhelmed on Monday. Quick decision: we’ll take them to our house and then see what to do. Two women, sisters, four children: three girls, one boy. A couple of days later we managed to get a key to an empty apartment that belonged to friends living in Denmark. On Friday, a third sister joined the women with her little daughter. So, eight people live together now in a 1BR flat. They don't want to be separated by any means, they are very scared, but determined to look for work. The apartment is currently rent-free. We deliver food, clothing and other necessities to them. I found a spot at a preschool for the 3 year old girl. The kids are super cute but are very scared and don't want to leave the house.
There are no flats left in Warsaw. No spare bedrooms, no sports arena that has not been turned into a shelter. People are helping. It seems no one is doing anything-, thinking about anything-, focused on anything else but helping the refugees. I’m proud of my people. How long can they last? This is only the beginning.
I get a call that sanitary pads and towels are needed at the train station, then one about soap and diapers needed at a sports arena near my house. I cannot enter my living room; there are boxes, bags, piles all over. My house has turned into a warehouse. I’ve been going door to door, ringing every bell asking for donations. People are so generous and just amazing. But the need is overwhelming.
Ukrainian people are proud. They’re not here for handouts. My boss gave housing to two families. And when I say families, I mean women with children, as men stayed in Ukraine to fight. Within a week, the two women he was hosting found work. They told him: we want to pay you rent now, we can.
A man, husband and a father of 3 little girls came to Poland over a month ago to work on a construction site. He didn’t even get his first paycheck when the war broke out. He brought his wife and the girls to Warsaw, but they could not stay at the barracks he was staying at. Someone offered them a flat near the Warsaw airport for one month. Every time a plane takes off or lands the girls cry. They’ve heard these sounds before and they were followed by bomb shelling. The man is very proud. He says: I have two arms and two legs, I will do anything to sustain my family. The apartment costs $800/month and the owner cannot afford to donate it for more that one month. The man earns about this much.
I live in a 2 BR apartment with my husband and our cocker spaniel, Spikey. Taking him for a daily walk is what keeps me sane these days. I think about my life two weeks back. Work, pottery classes, cross country skiing on weekends. How banal my life then looks right now.
There is a lot of logistics and life-admin work that the refugees need. It’s not all about diapers and food rations. My husband and I help with finding space in kindergarten for the kids, setting up bank accounts, legal aid and filling out all kinds of paperwork. I can’t even type any more, I record and send voice messages, which used to annoy me so much.
Most refugees are women with kids. Single moms. Their husbands/partners stayed in Ukraine to fight. The women want to stick together, they don’t want to separate from their sisters, cousins, friends. They are scared. But they are proud and determined. Would I be? Would you?
“It’s a temporary situation” - that’s what everyone is thinking, saying, hoping. What I know is that this city, this country, this world may never be the same again.
A friend of a friend was building a large house. It was going to be ready this summer. I got about $1,000 in donations from friends and family which helped get it ready to host 24 women and children.
In my city, in my country, nothing else matters these days. The only conversations on Facebook and other social media are about who can help, where, how, who needs it, where, what. In the absence of government bodies being ready for this humanitarian crisis, the people are organizing themselves. It’s day 13 of the war and I’m starting to get a grasp of how I can manage all this.
My phone beeps, rings, buzzes constantly. I am running on autopilot. I don’t go to bed before 1am and I wake up at 6am, to a chain of messages every day. I try to squeeze in a conference call or two a day. I still have a full time job. However, everyone at my work is doing the same. Trying to bring a sense of normalcy to the people arriving from a war zone.
The NGO sector in Poland has always been very small. It’s beyond overwhelmed right now. The internationals (like ActionAid, Doctors without Borders, etc.) arrived in the country only a couple days ago. So far, they sit in expensive hotels and strategize.
I’m “taking care” of a few families right now. I think it’s 12 as of today, one woman had gotten a visa to the US to join relatives, another one got a job, then there are two more waiting at the border to be picked up. My husband and I call them “our families”. Each one of my friends has a few of “their families”.
A friend of a friend took in a 3-generation family. Grandma, mom and her daughter. Grandma passed away to days later, her heart just could not take it any more. They decided to cremate her and take her ashes to Ukraine when all this is over. The cremation bill was $1,200. No one could pay it. I paid with the money I got from random donations from my friends.
Everyone arriving is quite scared. Since it’s all women and kids they want to stick together. Sisters, cousins, friends. They don’t want to separate. They don’t want to go outside. Yesterday, on Sunday, I managed to take a dozen kids ice skating. We had some laughs. Did life feel “normal” for a moment?"
You can also follow Karolina and her husband Piotr on FB:
Organizer
Malgorzata Lukomska
Organizer
Saratoga Springs, NY