One small story about Ukraine refugees

As I’m sure everyone knows by now there are millions leaving their homes in Ukraine for safety. Most of them are looking to Poland to help them in their time of extreme need, and they are finding it there.

That is of course a massive oversimplification of the tremendous efforts that are going into finding millions of people virtually every conceivable thing a person might need: food, medicine, clothing, but also personal items of all kinds. Many left with little more than the clothes on their back and with those clothes being badly suited to the continuing cold weather.

But they also need shelter of course and one post I read said that personnel from aid agencies would arrive on scene at the border points and wonder where the refugee camps were.

There were none. A few tents for the overnight stay before departing to other centres were proper accommodation, often in homes where rooms were offered willingly.

And while cities like Krakow have most often been mentioned as a first destination for the people fleeing Ukraine, cities and towns across Poland are all offering their kindness and generosity, as they are in other countries bordering Ukraine, and as many are here in Canada too.

One of these towns in located about 400km from the Ukraine border and about 35km south of Katowice. Gocza?kowice-ZdrójWith a population of only 6200 souls, it’s a pretty little town whose claim to fame as it were is a mineral spring.

People go there to on spa vacations to stay in quaint inns, enjoy the waters, get mud packs and massages as they have been doing for a couple of hundred years.?A lot of it is pretty old school, but in more recent times visitors can take to the bike trails, catch a wave at the wake park, or just sit back and sip on a mojito and enjoy the sunshine.

Places like this are dotted all over Poland but this one is particularly special because it where my father was born and grew up until WWII forced him out of the inn his family ran –the Nazi’s turned it into a base of operations, then the Soviet Union forces moved in and took everything.

He eventually made his way to England, then Canada.

And every now and then I take a peak at what is happening there, and going back a few weeks what was happening was quite astounding.

Within days of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forced, the people of Gocza?kowice-Zdrój were preparing for the Ukraine refugees.

They knew what was coming.

Care packages were being assembled. Calls were put out to find out how many rooms people could offer. Committees and caravans and schools were mobilized. And the citizenry was mobilized not just to find spaces to accept the new arrivals, but to help them get settled and find work.

One of the most curious elements I found was the emphasis on getting “PESEL” numbers that allow them to using healthcare, social assistance or starting a company in Poland. Even in times of war, the bureaucracy still needs its numbers, it seems, but it also seems they are facilitating the processes to allow those arriving to make lives for themselves. This is not a "refugee number"; everyone in Poland has one. Canadians have Social Insurance Numbers, in Poland you have a PESEL. And Ukraine refugees can get one right away.

And while it is also true that there are always those who feel it is their obligation to point out that there are “our own who need to be taken care of,” there is precious little negative sentiment about accepting who they refer to as “our eastern neighbours.”

Alongside the many individuals putting up those fleeing the war in Ukraine, perhaps the most poignant example of this is that residents moved kindergarten students out of their school and within days converted classrooms and other rooms into very cozy accommodations for at least a dozen families

It really gives every impression that it is a community pulling together.

I am sure this is a story that is playing out all over Europe and on this side of the Atlantic too, though the distance changes things. But if nothing else the response should reinforce the important point that human generosity will prevail, and basic respect for human life and basic human decency will bind all together.

At least I hope so.