SOMEWHERE IN UKRAINE — The Airbnbs and hotels in the towns and cities along the European borders of Ukraine are packed. An estimated 1 million Ukrainians have crossed into Moldova and Poland and Slovakia, where the local Europeans have welcomed them with open arms. We are seeing the start of a refugee crisis.
A former Polish foreign minister tells me that the Polish people see the Ukrainians as fighting the Russians so that they won’t have to. Some 400,000 Ukrainians have crossed into Poland, but 80,000 Ukrainian men who had been living in the country as guest workers have gone in the opposite direction.
“They have put down their tools and politely said goodbye to their Polish bosses and gone home to fight for their country,” he tells me in awe.
The situation has also brought out the best in people. Every diaspora that I have ever heard of is working hard on getting its people out. Ukrainian Canadians fundraise tens of millions for the support of refugees in western Ukraine. Jewish organizations collect money to get Jewish Ukrainians under threat out. Catholic organizations and Greeks and Poles do the same for their own people. The LGBT community is fundraising to get gay activists out of the country, and I field calls to help them find safe houses.
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Solidarity amongst Europeans and Americans has been remarkable. I have received literally dozens of e-mails and texts from people back home who are organizing some sort of refugee relief. Dozens of people have hired former military organizations who had exfiltrated people out of Afghanistan. Networks have sprung up to get people under threat out. Are you on the Russian kill list? If so, there are hundreds of kind-hearted people who are willing to get you out.
The Ukrainian city of Chernowitz is close to the Romanian border. The city of Lviv is next to Poland. Both elegant old world towns have also become modern versions of Rick’s Casablanca. Both are overflowing with refugees and internally displaced people. Wandering around the center of Lviv and Chernowitz, I run into multiple old acquaintances. An editor I used to work with on TV embraces me warmly and we take a selfie for our wives. A think tank guy I once met at a political conference is here setting up an organization to help volunteers.
In fact, the town is full of temporary housing set up by volunteers. At least four people I know ask me if I have a place to sleep. Listening in to me speak English over my cellphone in the cafe where I have my lunch, a prominent Ukrainian businessman asks if he can speak to me.
He is afraid of being arrested for his political writings — which were a hobby — and because his father is a famous scientist. He is in his 50s but young enough to not be allowed out of the country because of the ban on fighting age men leaving. Could I help get him out? I connect him to a Ukrainian friend now living in San Francisco who knows a guy who can.
This war is already a horror but there is reason to think that the worst is yet to come.
My beloved Odessa — the hometown of my wife — where I have spent a part of the year for the last decade and a city which I wrote a book about, seems to be on the verge of being attacked. Russian warships can be seen a dozen miles off the Black Sea costs of the city. Half the people that I know in the town have fled.
Sadly this does not include my relatives, who are both stubborn and rooted in city. Half the day today was spent in explaining to them that rocket fire is very unpleasant and that they should leave. I pray that my father-in-law does not prove so stubborn that he stays after the inevitable start of the bombing.
Brooklyn-bred Vladislav Davidzon is the author of “From Odessa with Love.”
