Opinion | Russia. Invasion. And Polands Very Long Memory. – The New York Times

USTRZYKI DOLNE, Poland Polish people know the pain of being invaded. This is what an opera singer told me as she handed out hot stew to Ukrainian refugees in a tent near the mountainous border between Ukraine and Poland on a chilly night in early March. She had planned to go skiing. She came here instead.

We were in the same situation in 1939, said Susan Grey, the opera singer, referring to the Polish people during World War II. We didnt have such an opportunity to be welcomed. We didnt have a place to go.

It feels as if the entire country of Poland has joined the effort to welcome Ukrainian refugees. I met software developers and chief executives who had taken time off work to drive supplies to the border. Hotels in Warsaw are offering free rooms, insurance companies free insurance. About 90 percent of Poles say that Poland should open its doors to Ukrainian refugees. Its a stunning contrast with 2015, when the pope himself couldnt persuade Poland to accept Syrians fleeing civil war. Just over three months ago, Polish police fired water cannons at Iraqi and Syrian asylum seekers to push them back into Belarus.

Polish people gave me many reasons that its different this time: Ukrainians are neighbors. They are Christians. They are fellow Slavs. But thats not the whole story. Before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Ukrainians faced discrimination and disrespect in Poland, where they tend to work in low-wage jobs, like driving cabs or picking apples. Now, the Ukrainian flag flies at the Warsaw City Hall, and the Ukrainian anthem rings out from St Marys Basilica in Krakow.

The way Polish people are acting, it feels like they are brothers and sisters, said Oleksandr Romashchenko, whom I met outside the U.S. embassy in Warsaw, where he held up a sign demanding a no-fly zone for Ukraine. He told me he moved to Poland from Kyiv a few years ago to follow his wife, who had gotten a job here. He hadnt always felt welcome. But true friends get to know each other during tough times, he said.

This crisis is fast becoming the largest humanitarian catastrophe in Europe since World War II, and Poland has opened its arms wide because these refugees arent fleeing a civil war in a faraway land. Theyre fleeing an invasion right next door.

For years, Poland has been among the loudest voices in Europe warning about the Russian threat while other countries, such as Germany, kept on doing business with Moscow. But now theres no point in saying I told you so. The only thing to do is project European unity and get ready for the tsunami of human suffering heading this way.

Warsaws mayor, Rafa Trzaskowski, told me in his office in Warsaw City Hall on Tuesday that the number of refugees was multiplying quickly. Three days earlier, 7,000 people had sought help from the citys welcome program, he said. Yesterday it was 20,000. Today it was 30,000. Vice President Kamala Harris visited the city this week, and pledged $53 million in new humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians impacted by war.

The first wave of refugees included many people with friends and relatives here. But many of the new arrivals dont know a soul. We have instances where the mother died and the father is fighting and he put his kids on a train and they arrive here, 12-year-olds, alone, Mr. Trzaskowski told me.

He hopes the good will in Poland will last. Already, Mr. Trzaskowski said he has gotten calls from Polish hosts who had offered their homes for a couple of days and are now asking, What can I do with these people?

Thanks to a recent court ruling, Mr. Trzaskowski has been able to commandeer an old Soviet-era building in Warsaw known as Spyville, which he intends to refurbish into housing for Ukrainian refugees. That will be great symbolism, but it will house only so many families. He has started looking at stadiums as temporary housing.

Europe is also bracing itself for a strong Russian disinformation campaign aimed at whipping up populist anger against the refugees in the communities where they settle. We will have to face this and the disruptive consequences, Katarzyna Peczynska, Polands former ambassador to Moscow, told me.

For now, daily life in Warsaw continues mostly as it was. People pick up their dry cleaning. They buy flowers. They check the news nervously. An art teacher in Warsaw, who spent her youth behind the Iron Curtain in Poland, told me that Polish people understood the nature of the Russian threat better than the people of Western Europe. As she watches the unthinkable happen in Ukraine, shes wondering if something unthinkable might happen here, too. Were not panicking, but were panicking, she said.

Nowhere is the connection between Ukraine and Poland more apparent than in Ustrzyki Dolne, a Polish village that was swallowed by the Soviet Union in 1939. Had it not been for a land swap in 1951, its residents would be Ukrainians, at war with Russia right now. Bartosz Romowicz, the 33-year-old mayor of Ustrzyki Dolne, has been eyeing the conflict next door since his election seven years ago. Back then, the conflicts between Ukraine and Russia, over Crimea and two pro-Russian breakaway enclaves in Eastern Ukraine, simmered some 900 miles away. It felt distant enough for Mr. Romowicz to dream of starting an electric car project with his counterpart in the Ukrainian city of Boryslav, on the other side of the border. In December, Mr. Romowicz drove there to discuss the project. Today, he gets texts from his Ukrainian partner about shortages of food and medicine. He has delivered humanitarian supplies across the border.

Its a commonly held view here that Ukraine must prevail, against all odds. If Ukraine loses, Poland will likely have a brutal Russian occupation and possibly a raging insurgency on its border. Mr. Putin could turn his attention to the next bite hes going to take out of Europe.

This is the contradiction at the bottom of every conversation I seem to have in Poland. Everybody tells me how important it is for Ukraine to win; what a catastrophe it will be if the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is defeated. Hes fighting for the security of all of Europe, they say. Yet, at the same time, nobody seems to want to give Ukraine military assistance in this existential fight. To do so would put a target on Polands back, and drag NATO and the United States into a nuclear confrontation with Russia. This is the geopolitical reality that ties the hands of Poland, and renders the Polish people helpless bystanders to the killings next door.

Everybody is afraid of a third world war, Paulina Dudzic, a software programmer from Torun, told me.

She has no control over that. So she focuses on what she can do: making beds and soup for Ukrainian refugees at Jurkowa Wola, a cozy alpine lodge that is normally rented to cyclists and skiers. Her friend Beata Piatkowska, who owns the place, has relatives in Ukraine and canceled all tourist reservations to make room for families crossing the border.

Ever since, Paulina has played the role of social worker, babysitter and chef to a stream of brokenhearted people: A family with two cats and a turtle. Newlyweds who spent one night here together before the man went back to the front. A mother of two who drove 27 hours straight to get here, then sat shellshocked, pondering where to go next.

Paulina sprang into action. She called friends and secured a place for the mother to stay in Torun. Then she stole a few minutes of peace on a porch swing, resting up for the long night ahead.

Follow this link:

Opinion | Russia. Invasion. And Polands Very Long Memory. - The New York Times