At the Ukraine-Poland border, ordinary people step up to help refugees thrust into a crisis – Part 1

MATT GALLOWAY: This is the cathedral of Saint John, the Baptist in Sherman, it's a city 14 kilometres from the Ukraine border. Today we're meeting the helpers, the individuals and organisations who have opened their doors to Ukrainian refugees. I'm Matt Galloway and this morning The Current is in Poland. We'll also speak with Canada's ambassador to Ukraine, who's left Kyev and is now here in Poland. And later Europe is used to waves of migrants, but not everyone is welcome. We'll hear those stories later on in the programme. We begin, though, with those.

SOUNDCLIP

Hello.

MG: Attached to the cathedral is a small school. Upstairs, classrooms have been turned into dormitories, housing dozens of refugees. Courts fill up every available space. Valerji is our translator and it's where we meet Natalia and Denislav.

NATALIA: [Foreign speech]

VALERJI: Twenty nine years old

MG: They're a young couple. Natalia's bundled up in a parka. She's always looking around trying to keep track of her five kids. They're running up and down the hall. What was it like in Kharkiv?

DENISLAV: [Foreign speech]

VALERJI: 50 percent of town are destroyed, and every time alarm and bomb and bombs going now.

MG: And now you're here in the church and you're staying, you've been staying here?

DENISLAV: [Foreign speech]

VALERJI: For a few days they wait. They will find some apartments, some flats and some jobs.

MG: I can hear kids. Also with them, with their orange tabby, a welcome distraction for the kids. Is it your cat that you brought your cat?

NATALIA: [Foreign speech]

MG: Is it keeping the kids entertained?

NATALIA: Da da da.

VALERJI: Always busy.

MG: In the church after you leave here, where where will you go?

VALERJI: They go to [unintelliglbe].

MG: And do you have family or friends there that you can stay with?

NATALIA: [Foreign speech].

VALERJI: Nobody.

MG: You're just going to find somewhere to stay? How long do you think you'll be?

DENISLAV: I don't know. I want go to home. I

VALERJI: UKharkiv was European city. Was very beautiful. City, our mayor has a building everything, it was very beautiful. It's the biggest square in Europe. Uh, a lot of nice streets. But now everything is destroyed because...

DENISLAV: Old crazy man.

VALERJI: Old crazy man destroyed everything.

MG: Natalia tells us that when the bombing started, she went into labour at seven months. Their baby died after a day and is buried in Kharkiv. That is why they want to go back.

NATALIA: On the weekend, born our son and for one one day is died.

MG: Do you feel safe here?

NATALIA: Yes.

VALERJI: When somebody close the door, they're scared because they think it's the bombs.

MG: Her kids run up to us and she wants to introduce them.

NATALIA: Dascha, Sonja, Sacsha, Danja.

MG: Andre is also at the school. He fled Ukraine two weeks ago, but he's already volunteering. He's a teenager, soft spoken, and he tells us he hasn't slept in days.

ANDREZJ: I want to help people who came from Ukraine from war.

MG: Why is it important for you to do that?

ANDREZJ: Because I want to help, because it's my job for these days. It's my job. So this first room, you can see that how people are living here.

MG: How many people are here in the cathedral?

ANDREZJ: Right now? Around 60.

MG: Sixty. And and what is this? What is this space normally?

ANDREZJ: This is classroom.

MG: A classroom? OK.

ANDREZJ: And here comes at four o'clock comes three doctors.

MG: Three doctors will come here.

ANDREZJ: Yeah, yeah.

MG: And check people out.

ANDREZJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MG: And so they're here just for a couple of days and then they go off somewhere else. So this is a temporary sort of shelter for them. Where were they coming from?

ANDREZJ: From Ukraine. We also sent people to train station and to the airport.

MG: And so you, you're at the train station and you help find people there who are looking for shelter and you bring them here.

ANDREZJ: Yeah. Tonight, here comes around 15 people. When I stay on the train station. Uh, this is a family which found shelter for one night. And when we go out from our train station, we see two more families which want to shelter too. So we, we try to find firefighters who help us to sent this the three families to to here.

MG: If they didn't have that. If you weren't able to find the where would they go?

ANDREZJ: If they can sleeping in the mega market, which named Tesco.

MG: But it's better here than in the in the mega market. Yeah.

ANDREZJ: So let's go next. So here are two classroom. Much because kids are sleeping, OK.

MG: And so these all of these classrooms were just turned into bedrooms for the kids to sleep.

ANDREZJ: Yeah. So also, we get a lot of humanitarian help.

MG: Mm-Hmm. And what are the humanitarian groups doing?

ANDREZJ: Is foods and also sleeping bags. But, you know, sleeping around 20 or 25 people is a lot of kids, and to some animals.

MG: Cats.

ANDREZJ: Yeah. Tonight. All these people coming here.

MG: And then they'll be here for a couple of days and then they'll leave. How long do you think this operation will continue? How long will you keep welcoming people here?

ANDREZJ: Oh no. How long is the war will be, then will be here, this shelter.

MG: But as long as the war is happening, people will be able to come here.

ANDREZJ: Yeah, yeah.

MG: Is it hard to watch this?

ANDREZJ: When the kids came? Oh my god. It's so crazy. It's so crazy for me. I mean, of course, it's like, this is life, and we don't do better.

MG: The next room. Someone starts to play the piano. Irina has also left Ukraine, and she starts to sing in the room, stops to listen.

IRINA: [Playing the piano and singing]

ANDREZJ: give a little bit more, you know.

MG: the volunteers here live close by and go home at night. But there are some who are making much, much longer journeys.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: Wyatt?

WYATT: Yes.

MG: Matt Galloway, I meet Wyatt Rate at the train station in Schimel. He's wearing a black Maple Leafs hat. Clearly, he's a Canadian.

WYATT: Welcome to Poland. Hi, thank you. It's been a little bit of a tumultuous journey.

MG: He's been travelling for a couple of days from his home in Hamilton to Toronto to London, to Frankfurt to Krakow, and finally, the train here. And the first question has to be: why?

WYATT: I'm trying to save my friend's little sister. I'm trying to get her out of Ukraine and then up to up to [unintelligible] in Poland and then try and figure out where where we can take her after that just to get away from the conflict that she's in or that that can in right now.

MG: OK, so tell me about your friend's little sister. Who is she and where is she right now?

WYATT: Her name's Avila. Uh, I'm not exactly sure where she is right now. Last I talked to my friend or last I was able to talk to him. He was in Kyev and he was trying to get out and move south and away from it. They fled from their home, which is east of Kyev.

MG: What do you know about her in terms of where she is? Have you met her before?

WYATT: I've never met her before, so I knew her brother from school. I used to well. When I went to school, he I met him up in Ottawa and we kind of had a few interactions. But beyond that, there was never, never much. He showed me like he told me about his family a bit when when I met him and I've never really met her. So like, this is just somebody that I met for a few months. I hung out with and partied with, ended up with and he he did a lot of stuff which helped my life immensely. And so to me, coming in, helping get his sister out when he asked, so he put it out, call it to everyone he knew. And when I answered, he was simply thankful. And really, it's like, I don't know much about him. Overall, I just I'm trying to do it just to be helpful for him and help out around the conflict any way I can.

MG: What was the call that he put out? I mean, how did you hear that he was looking for someone to come and rescue his sister?

WYATT: So he he message out on Discord and Snapchat originally, and he he said, Hey, this is my situation. I'm heading towards Kyev and then to the border. Can any of you guys help out and look after my sister? He he's handing off his sister and he's going back to fight as far as I'm aware. But really, he just put out the message over Discord and Snapchat, and I picked it up and I was like, Hey, I can possibly do something. Let me get some more information.

MG: How old is his sister?

WYATT: About seven, I believe? So very young, which has caused a lot of difficulty in legal documents in trying to find proper, proper channels to actually get her through this. Because again, like you don't, I don't want to get charged with anything from any officials. And I just want to be helpful and make it so that way that she has as much of a stable experience with this as possible.

MG: Where are your friends and his sister? Where are their parents?

WYATT: So their parents have been one of the biggest inequalities in this, in the sense that her father, Emily's father, died a couple of years back. I believe that's when that's when Alexander he came back from Canada, I believe, to the Ukraine to take care of her because the mom has been MIA since May 2017, I believe, which makes it really difficult for our situation right now because without the mom in the picture, legal documentation has become very difficult to work through. We we can't discern if Alec has proper legal custody in terms of like in the eyes of a court to hand off his sister or not. And that has been one of the biggest struggle is for us trying to figure out what we need to do, so.

MG: And so when you leave here, where are you going to go?

WYATT: II'm going to go find a place here. So that way I can stay for a while and then I'm going to head to Medyka and I'm going to be looking for my friend at the border and hopefully volunteering there while I wait to find him.

MG: So do you know anybody else here? Have you just come by yourself?

WYATT: I've Ihad a lot of help from from people that I knew and their friends. Overall, in terms of people that I know around here, it's been very difficult to find people on the ground around here beyond beyond, like different reporters that I've been able to talk to. There's really been not a ton I could do and but I've had people on the other side as well trying to help me in this side, so. It's beyond that I don't really know many people around here, no.

MG: So when you get to the border, how are you going to try to make contact with your friend whose sister is in Ukraine, that you're trying to get over?

WYATT: Honestly, it's been. It's been one of the biggest stressful factors because we lost contact with him. I don't know, like his phone can be broken. He just couldn't, might not be able to get a message to me. So the main thing that we're going to do, we're going to hopefully put a big sign up and hopefully be looking for him without having proper contact with him, which we haven't. There's not much we can do beyond beyond that. Put out a sign with their names on it and hope that they they see it. And then we're like, maybe we can sit down wherever we are and we can get through other legal documents that we need to get through to get his sister properly out and anywhere safe.

MG: Basically, that you're kind of flying blind on this.

WYATT: It's been mostly buying the entire way, but I have to do something to help out. To me, that's the best thing I can do and what I believe, and one of the things he told me when we were at school and it helped me was a quote. He said, Whoa, is he who runs from what he believes. And to me, I believe in this. So even if I'm flying blind, I will. I'll do everything I can to help out.

MG: Can you tell me more about that? I mean, you've flown halfway around the world to a country. Have you been to Poland before?

WYATT: I've never been to Poland. I've never left North America before. I haven't flown in five years. I'm awful on public transportation. I once got lost in Ottawa because I took the wrong bus and I went an hour the opposite direction. But I did this like, like, I did this again because I felt like to me, it was the right thing to do and and I had the help along the way. I had a lot of help from a lot of people along the way to help direct me and guide me and where I need to go. But it's been an extremely stressful and tiring experience.

MG: Who helped you along the way?

WYATT: My godmother, Lisa Wright. She helped me a lot. My father helped me a lot. My father put out a call to like 200 of his friends and like non-stop messages coming in. There were so many messages at times I had to tell them I had to redirect them to my father or to like other people being like, You need to talk to them and give their information to them, and then they'll filter it to me. And now I'll be able to figure out what to do with it because there is just so much help coming in. It's really difficult to figure out, and a lot of the information was contradicting, which of course it is. It's a war on the ground on the other side. So it's it's been really difficult. But those are the two main people that have been helping me get through a lot of this year. Godmother's Lisa Wright the former politician. Yeah, yeah.

MG: What does she say when you said, this is what I want to do?

WYATT: She said, That's absolutely amazing and I'll do everything in my power to help you. It was the very first thing, she said, like, without a doubt. And she spent tons of time working on this and helping out and trying to trying to assist me to get to where I want to be. So. Yeah.

MG: How long are you going to stay here in Poland waiting for your friend's sister?

WYATT: My my plan was - I have no idea right now, but at least I was going to be looking for him for at least a week. There's only, I only have two days where we agreed on for meeting, but it could take him longer. And if I'm not here for that, then he he could just miss it. And then then he's stuck again. He's stuck in the exact same awful situation. Like he might lose a sister, he might lose her in the system because he might have to give it her to Child Protective Services to take care of or whatever they have here in Poland for it. In terms of like staying longer and doing stuff if they don't show up. My plan is to continue saying and helping out around here if I can find some, some group to volunteer with and help out down the border. Really, it's not like my time is insignificant compared to like what I could be doing with it here versus what I would be doing with it all the way back home in Hamilton.

MG: What do you think it is? You've talked about your friend, but what do you think it is within you that has brought you here? Most people aren't doing things like this.

WYATT: It's really difficult. I think I'm an impulsive person all the time, but I a lot of my impulses pass. But this one kind of just lit a fire under me where I was like, This is this is something that I want to do. This is somewhere I want to go. Tons of people in my family told me, Don't go, it's so unsafe, you'll get hurt. Somebody like something will happen to you, but to me, it's again, it's like it's the same quote I got before I was he, who runs from what he believes and to to me, it just really strikes a chord where it's like, Why would I run from something like, why would I run from this difficulty when I believe so much in helping others? Why would I? Why would I not commit as much as possible to this? And like in the end, one week a month, two months that time, that time is something I may never get back, but it'll be something that was worth it no matter what happens. The fact that I tried to help it means it means so much to me.

MG: So you have somewhere to stay here. Where are you going?

WYATT: I had somebody messaging me about a place to stay, but right now nothing has been overly confirmed right now for where I'm staying. So worse comes to worse. I end up sitting outside for a couple of nights. It's not always. It's not always ideal, but it wouldn't be the first time I've had to do something like that. It's cool. It is cold. You know, born in Canada to get to you learn to live with the cold. I've camped. I've camped out in the winter as well. So it's it's not the end of the world to me. I experienced it before some tough nights.

MG: Good luck and keep in touch. Let us know what happens here. I will. He grabs a small suitcase and heads up the stairs of the station, gets one more text on his phone.

WYATT: I've got an apartment bug for me for today. Great. OK. I don't have to sleep outside. That's OK. Nice.

MG: But he could use a ride. Where are we going?

WYATT: [Unintelligible]? I think it's called. How far is that? Eight minutes?

MG: Coming up after the break? I'll speak with someone who knows well how to get refugees to Canada. The Canadian ambassador to Ukraine. She's had to relocate to Poland. I'm Matt Galloway this is The Current in Poland, and we're back in six minutes.

SOUNDCLIP

WYATT: Thank you very much. It's very kind of you guys. Good luck and I'll keep in touch if I find her.

MG: Let us know, please.

WYATT: Oh, I'll let you guys know.

MG: Thank you. Take care.

Ukrainians are 'fighting our fight' for democracy and freedom, says Ambassador Larisa Galadza

Guest: Larissa Galadza

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current, coming to you today from Poland. In the heart of Przemysl, just around the corner from the cathedral, refugees climb the stairs of the Ukrainian Cultural Centre looking for help. We're here to meet Canada's ambassador to Ukraine. But first, a tour.

SOUNDCLIP

We are now in the heart of this building, actually, it's a very beautiful old with lots of Ukrainian national decoration. And now we are hearing some music. I don't know where that comes from.

MG: Natalie is sitting with her head in her hands. Her 14 year old son, Vodan, is next to her. They're here trying to sort out what to do next.

[Foreign speech]

VALERJI: They came here yesterday for one tonight, three, relax, and then... They are from Ukraine and Crimea. And it was always in alarm and they after a few days, they go to Italy.

MG: They don't have relatives, they're just a friend of Vodan's sister who will help them find an apartment for a week or two. Voda has always wanted to travel. Not like this.

[Foreign speech]

VALERJI: So it's very sad. But he wants to go to other countries all his life. But, but not now, not because of the war, but he wanted to go to other countries.

MG: They're grateful for the help they're getting.

VALERJI: Very, very much people help for us. A lot of people have helped her for us volunteers and people who lived here.

MG: Katarina is organising the volunteers here. She was born in Poland, but she calls herself Ukrainian.

SOUNDCLIP

KATARINA: Since the first day of this war, we try to figure out what we can to do, and first of all, we collect a base of volunteers who knows English, but what is the most important Ukrainian language. So for now, we have five hundreds of volunteers who are working mostly on a railway station, helping, translating and communicating with services and moving all of these waves refugees to another cities and other places. Whereas more places is done here because it's a very small city, actually so. Secondly, we are also managing the place for rest and we have 40 for now. But we try to make more beds. And it's here we have very, very home atmosphere because we have place for children to play each other and the kitchen and, uh, place to eat. And we are trying, talking with all of these people and contacting them and making the day feeling better.

MG: It's a huge volunteer effort to help those coming across the border, but it hasn't all been smooth.

SOUNDCLIP

KATARINA: I feel supported, but also I see lots of problems with communication, for example, between local government and other services and non-governmental organisation. And it's visible and it's really frustrating. But we try to help in very dramatic situations. And in this circumstances, we felt that we will be united, but it sometimes doesn't work, actually. So we try the best of doing everything, but it's it's hard.

MG: The halls are filled with volunteers rushing around figuring out how to feed and house everyone coming in.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Hello, hello. My name is Kassa. I'm one of coordinator here.

VOICE 2: Very nice to meet you, Kassa.

MG: And here to meet them is Larissa Galadza, Canada's ambassador to Ukraine. The embassy was moved from Kyev to the Lviv and then out of Ukraine altogether as tensions escalated and the war began.

MG: Ambassador, thank you for taking time to talk to us.

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: Thank you for being here.

MG: How are you doing?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: I'm doing well. Thank you.

MG: You were at the train station here in town. Tell me what you saw.

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: I saw an awful lot of people, tired people sleeping children, people eating and doing work, helping, interviewing. It's just everybody. Is there lots of volunteers, lots of signs in Ukrainian for free food, for free tickets for organising to go here, there and elsewhere. It's obviously the point where Ukrainians are coming and then deciding where they will go next.

MG: How do you process the scale of this humanitarian crisis?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: I think most of us who are seeing this aren't processing it just yet. I think the processing will come later. I think it's just it's overwhelming. And so you just want to pick up and do what you can do in the moment. And I think that when we step away from it, it will hit us.

MG: You are here in Poland, not in Ukraine. Tell me about leaving.

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: Leaving was something that we had to do to to be safe, keep the Canadian personnel safe. It's not something we wanted to do, but we had to had no more choice. And quite frankly, we are able to do more here. In our last days in Ukraine. We were spending the vast majority of our time just watching the situation for that because we knew the moment would come. And so once we left, we were able to do a lot more and and we're glad that we can stay close to Ukraine, close to Ukrainians very much plugged into what's going on inside the country and with the people that are leaving.

MG: There's a long pause before you answered that. I mean, how difficult was it to leave the country?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: Oh, it was brutal. And we left twice right because we left Kyev and we closed the embassy. We unplugged everything we packed up. We took down the flag and we closed the gates behind us. And I said to the guards, All right. It's in your hands now, and we'll be back. We went to Lviv and we set up there, and for 10 days, you could see every morning the relief on the on the faces of the staff at the hotel because we were still there and that gave them confidence. The morning that we decided we had to leave, those faces changed and that was heartbreaking. That was heartbreaking. And to leave you, I mean, that was the I think a lot of us cried for a lot of the journey out of the country.

MG: And taking down the flag. I mean, what was that like?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: It was, I knew it was a big moment but the group of us that were there, we just did it. And the security that was with me, they folded up the flag and they said, Ma'am, this is yours. And so I've had that close to me since we left, and it's that flag that's going to go back up.

MG: You have. A personal connexion to the country and your grandparents and roots in that country, when you take a look at the scale of the destruction that we're seeing right now. What goes through your mind?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: What goes through my mind is the strength of the people like my grandparents and the strength of the people that I've met since living in Ukraine for almost two and a half years is that it'll all be rebuilt. It will be rebuilt and. And what was there will return and it'll be it'll be even stronger. I think that when I talk to people now who are leaving the country, it's temporary. They have every hope and every right to hope and every reason to believe that they'll be going and that they will be going back. I think we see that in the strength of the president, in his determination and in the determination of every single person who is doing what they need to do to defend their country. It's remarkable, and I think that that's what Canadians see and what inspires people all over the world. When you don't have the tanks or the military to protect the nuclear power plant, the people defend it with their bodies and with their lives. And so we have every reason to believe that that it will be rebuilt and that Canada and the world will be with Ukraine in that rebuilding.

MG: We have been speaking with people from across Europe who have driven for many, many hours showing up at the train station, showing up at the border, shown up at the kind of impromptu processing plant in this former department store who are taking people refugees back to countries like Germany, back to Belgium, back to Estonia, places they've never been to before in cars with people whose language they don't speak. What does that tell you about what's going on in this moment?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: I think it tells me that everyone understands that Ukrainians are fighting our fight, our fight for democracy and for freedom, that that resonates with the regular people that Ukrainians have a spot in the hearts of Europeans, but also North Americans, Americans and Canadians who are, you know, they can't drive them back there, but they're certainly here doing doing what they can. And Ukrainians, they don't need to speak the language and the Europeans don't need to speak Ukrainian to understand that that is goodness.

MG: What's being done? I mean, we in Canada have a substantial, as you know, Ukrainian Canadian population. There are people 150,000 people a day who are fleeing the country into Poland. Upwards of three, four or five million people could be forced out of Ukraine. What are we doing to get people who want to come to Canada, to Canada?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: Right now, we're setting up the programmes that will give Ukrainians options if they want to come to Canada for a little bit of time, if they want to come to Canada for a longer period of time. Those pathway will become easier for them to navigate and they will be processed faster. The faster processing actually started a while ago. And now, after the minister's announcement last week about the visa programmes and the and the permanent resident programmes, those programmes are being stood up right now. I know it's probably frustrating and it takes a little bit of time for that to happen. But there's good reason for that. And they will work well for this particular crisis at this particular time.

MG: That accelerated programme is for Ukrainian citizens. There are non Ukrainians who are living in Ukraine who are not part of that programme to get to Canada. Why is that the case?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: I'm not sure what the specifics of the specific details of the programme are going to be. And until I know what those are, I'm not going to speak about them.

MG: The minister has said that non-citizens who are in Ukraine don't qualify for the temporary refugee programme, the Accelerated Temporary Refugee Programme.

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: The temporary visa, the visa programme. I don't know.

MG: So you can answer that.

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: I can't answer that.

MG: You can't talk about that. When do you think you would get back? You talked about the flag that you have and you smile. When I asked that, when do you think that you would get back into the country?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: Will go back into the country when we have when we can be assured of our security and that means safe where we're staying, but also options to leave if the situation changes, changes again for the worst. And I think that there are some, there will be there will be options sooner than later and it might be might be possible to go in for day visits. It may be possible to go in and stay somewhere temporarily. This is something that's under, you know, something that when I get together with my colleague ambassadors, we we talk about over dinner and we we think we think about that time. We look forward to that time.

MG: I guess just finally, what would you say to Canadians about what's at stake here, that there has been a lot of bad news in the world over the last couple of years, and there's a lot going on right now, and this certainly is front and centre in the midst of that. What would you say to Canadians about what's at stake?

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: Canada is a middle sized country that stands for democracy, freedom, human rights, the rule of law and a lot of what we do in the world is trying to build that club, that club that abides by this international rules based order. Ukraine is a middle sized country whose people chose the path of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It's a country that lives beside two massive neighbours. Canada and Ukraine. Both understand that the international rules based order is what allows countries like ours to be prosperous, to be secure and to to defend those values. So it means to Canada, it means the building of that club. It means the defence of those values and and that's what we're throwing everything at it. Everything, everything that Canada stands for in the world comes together in Ukraine. And I think that that's why we're also seeing in Canada this outpouring of support from all of society. This isn't just the 1.4, 1.3 million Canadians who trace their heritage to this piece of the world. It's everyone because they. I think that people recognise the truth and the value of what Ukrainians are fighting for. They're part of our club in the world, the battle for them is an existential one for us. We have to support that.

MG: Ambassador, thank you.

AMBASSADOR LARISSA GALADZA: Thank you.

MG: Ambassador Larissa Galadza is not the only official in the region. Filippo Grandi, the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, was at the border crossing in Modica this week, visiting a sports stadium that's been turned into a processing centre.

SOUNDCLIP

FILIPPO GRADI: The whole world is stunned by this crisis, and I think that the world is anguished by what this represents or might represents in terms of global security. My my job is really to remind everybody, the Russian leadership and all those involved in trying to find a solution that the human cost is unbearable is unbearable, and this has to end so that people can resume their lives.

VOICE 1: This morning you said it is the fastest growing refugee crisis since world peace

FILIPPO GRADI: I's just growing exponentially. The news from Ukraine are not good. The humanitarian corridors don't seem to have worked so far, so I'm worried that more and more people would try to find safety across the borders and increasing the the burden here and the responsibility of this country's neighbouring Ukraine to host so many people.

VOICE 1: And is it safe to say that the intake numbers are far exceeding the expectations from the UNHCR?

FILIPPO GRADI: It was difficult to have any kind of expectation, actually, you know, our working plan. The planning figure that we suggested to governments because it's governments that have to make plan was four million or together. So we're not yet there, luckily. But at this speed, we will soon be approaching those figures. This is only in 10 days that we reached 1.5 million, not over a period of one year or two years. So it's really very fast. I have to say that what I have observed here at the Polish border is very organised is very well done. Of course, people line up for a long time because there's so many and it's cold and we'll try to work also on the other side of the border, because that's where apparently most of the problems I didn't go, but most of the problems are. But on this side, I have to say that it's a very correct reception. This transit centre is for the people who need to spend the night, and it's quite well organised. And what I find rather impressive is the enormous support that comes from the local people. Most of what is distributed here is not from international assistance is local community bringing food and medicines and toys for the children. Volunteers organising this is remarkable, but for how long this will be possible without people getting tired of this huge wave? We need to really, first of all, we must hope that it stops, that the war stops so that people stop coming and maybe some can go back. But if that doesn't stop, we will have more refugees, and then we will have to see how other countries can contribute more to the hospitality.

MG: What would you want to see from those other countries?

FILIPPO GRADI: Well, at the moment, you see there is a kind of natural distribution of refugees because Ukrainians have relatives. Those that are fleeing now in particular, have relatives, have families, as you know, and they go naturally where they have somebody supporting them. And since Europe has opened the doors to all of them, there is no major problem. The problem would be if we have a second wave or another wave of people with less connections, and then they will have to be help find a place to stay. Many have asked me whether we should build refugee camps. I really hope not. Refugee camps are not a good solution. Look at Greece. So many problems we've had there, so I think that it's better to continue to distribute these people wherever they wish, but also wherever there are availabilities in Europe and even beyond Europe. You know, I've spoken to U.S. media, Canadian media today. I know that there are plans there to open the doors. And one more thing I want to say is that all of this should not make us forget that there are many other refugee crisis that are very important. And, you know, up to a few weeks ago, nobody spoke about Ukrainian refugees. Everybody spoke about Afghan refugees. They're still there. They're still in need. And so are Syrian refugees and many others. So it is important that we keep this global perspective and to remind everybody that this is not the only refugee crisis, catastrophic and urgent as it may be.

VOICE 2: There are a lot of people watching this from from afar who want to help. How? Can people help and specifically, what is the need for the refugees who you have come in contact with coming from Ukraine?

FILIPPO GRADI: Well, you see, I think for the time being, the needs are largely met in terms of supplies, clothes, warm clothes, food. At least in this initial phase, I know many people would like to donate, are donating or I get my family, my friends in my country, in Italy writing to me. I think in every country there are organisations that collect. I would advise everybody to give to these organisation to create some order because, you know, small donations are great, but they can create a lot of complications logistically, so it's better to concentrate. And for whoever can do that, even if it's small, cash is always a good way to help. It's the most practical way to help because then those in charge of the assistance can buy the most appropriate items for the people.

VOICE 2: And is your feeling that this situation, this crisis is going to get worse? Or is there a sense that things are improving?

FILIPPO GRADI: I think that in terms of numbers, it's going to get worse. I cannot think otherwise unless, you know, the war stops. But if the war doesn't stop, if cities continue to be bombed, for sure, we will see more people coming. In terms of organisation, I hope that it can improve. But like I said, I think it's not bad here. On the contrary, I have to praise the Polish authorities. I was in Moldova yesterday. They're, you know, Moldova is a smaller country with less means outside the European Union. They need more help at this particular point from the international community. So in each place, it's a little bit different. But that organisation is not my main concern at the moment. My main concern is really inside Ukraine. Conditions of the people, the dangers they're facing and the war that they're fleeing from. Thank you. Thank you.

VOICE 2: I do have one just quick follow up, if I may, that there had been some reporting that perhaps children had been suffering from the elements in Ukraine because of the cold temperatures, frostbite, and that some people may have actually succumb to those conditions. Can you confirm any of those reports?

FILIPPO GRADI: We do not have enough information about all of Ukraine to be able to confirm that, but I've spoken to a lot of people like I'm sure you have in the last few days. The stories of those journeys are very hard and it's a mix of hardship and fear that people are. You know, I was talking to a family. They told me that during a train they could not even phone use the phone because the light of the phone can attract military action or bombardments. So it's really one feature that I found they should have mentioned is a great deal of trauma and psychological impact, which we often see in refugee crises. But it's particularly acute when people flee from war, from active war.

MG: That's Filippo Grandi, the UN's High Commissioner for refugees in the Polish border town of Modica. Your regional update is coming up. And then.

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Second, or the third day of the war, we had a very big wave of refugees from Africa countries, and we try to help them first on Medyka border. And also, we had a few mens here for the night to rest, but now I don't know where they are.

MG: Not everyone leaving Ukraine has been getting the same treatment. That's in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway in Poland and this is The Current.

At the Ukraine-Poland border, ordinary people step up to help refugees thrust into a crisis – Part 3

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current in Poland. There is something that stuck with me from our visit to the border with Ukraine this week,

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FERNAND: We saw very different, different to different category of people, the black people and the white people. Their situation were very, very different. We treat anyone. It's not the end of religion of race or that the same way, but we saw that their condition were very, very different. The white people came in bus, by bus. The black peoples came by feet and the situation were very bad.

MG: And those are the people who you said were walking 50 kilometres to get across the border.

FERNAND: They wanted to go into the buses they wanted to, to go by car, to get transported and to be here. Nobody let them go inside.

MG: That's Fernand Cohen Tanoudgy. He's an aid worker providing medical care at the Modica border crossing.

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ARPAN: My name is Arpan. I'm from Turkey. And before the war started, we were staying in [unintelligible]. I studied there for five years and it was like a second home.

ADNAN: My name, first of all, is Adnan Khader. I live in Kharkov. I actually saw you there at the moment. Not anymore, thanks to the war. I came from Morocco. I've been in Ukraine for about four years now. You eat in that country. You live in that country. You have friends in that country. So it's part of you becomes attached to that country. It's not easy to forget a place where to move on.

ARPAN: 24 morning, around five five a.m. We wake up with the sound like an earthquake, and later we realised it was the bombs on the border of the Kharkiv. So at that night, 24 night, we have stayed in the bunkers, the metro stations and some other bunkers in the building, inside the buildings. We decided to leave the car to the next morning because it was getting worse. We heard from our friends that the Polish borders are accepting people from every nationality, so we decided to try our chances in the Polish borders.

ADNAN: The moment we decided to leave Kharkiv, we took the chances. We knew that it was going to be hard, but we never knew. We never realised that it would be that hard to even pass a border. It was so hard to get in the train. Once you get in the train, you have to find a place. The people came 13 hours standing on the train or sitting in the toilet, and you can imagine how many people are trying to use that toilet.

ARPAN: Our Ukrainian friends hired buses that took us to the side of the border, which then you will have to walk for, like 50 to 55 km till you reach the Polish borders. Most of the buses was arranged for the Ukrainian people, but the foreigner people had to fought or find their own way out.

ADNAN: It was cold your walk. You don't even have charge for your phone. You don't even have internet. You just keep walking. Hopefully, you will reach the border. We thought it will be easy. We just have to work fifty five kilometres and we will get through. However, the problem started after we reached the borders.

ARPAN: It was like it was a nightmare. When you arrive there, you will see a big mass, mass of people, foreigner people, mostly and Ukrainian people. It is on the other side. There are buses coming for Ukrainian people like, OK, let's say, 10, 11, 12 buses are coming. Only every 24 hours, one bus comes for foreigner people. There is only two something like burrows, which has fires inside for you to be able to get warm. You have to be here maybe seven six quilts on top of yourself to be able to to be able to not freeze to death.

ADNAN: We accepted that children and woman should bus first, obviously. But however, they don't take you. Even if you wait eight hours, 12 hours, 15. Some people are there for two days or three days, and it's impossible with the cold. There's only tea that you can drink. You can drink tea for 15 hours and it's not going to make you warm.

ARPAN: It was stated by the bus drivers like only women and children. My fiancee, Ola and two other Ukrainian friends with a child. We like go to that bus. The mom of the child was in the bus and she said to my fiancee, like, come come. Once we try to get her into the bus, the bus driver said, like, oh no, there is no space. While there was like four seat empty.

ADNAN: They basically separated the foreigners from the Ukrainians and they treat them so bad like they don't even let them speak. They don't even let them pass. They tell you to kneel down so your passport and stay in the ground with the guns on top of you. I don't know what to tell you. Honestly, when you when you see something like that, you just lose hope in humanity.

ARPAN: Not just the black people like, like some Arabic people would say, it's some like, let's say, people, non-UK Iranian people. Yeah, I seen how they got dragged to pushed, even kicked. It has broken our hearts, of course, because the Ukraine was like a second home to all of us and the way we have been treated by the border guards. I don't know. It's it was very sad. It was like legit discrimination. Like, I don't know what to say, really. It's I wasn't expecting that. We felt like at home in the Ukraine, as I said, and all the foreigner people were aiding the Ukrainian economy, building their businesses, their lives, so they should have treated better.

MG: Those two students are now in Warsaw, where a Polish family has taken them in. Arek Poluniak Inuk, is a volunteer and we meet him outside the city's train station.

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AREK: I'm from [unintelliglbe]. I live here. I'm a businessman and trying to help because I, as you can hear, I speak a little bit English, just also a little bit Ukrainian, a little bit German. So there are always some. There's always something to do from people like that.

MG: When we were at the border yesterday, we heard from some doctors who were there and they were treating people who were arriving. And they said that some people were able to take the train up to the border and were able to get across. There were a lot of foreign students, African students, Indian students who weren't allowed on the train, and they had walked for 50 kilometres through the snow and they weren't being treated the same as some ethnic Ukrainians, if I can put it that way. Have you seen that difference in terms of how people are being treated here?

AREK: Unfortunately, yes, but the situation that you're talking about is the situation on the other side of the border in Ukraine. Every people that come here to Poland are actually we're trying to get that to give them some help. But the free help, free buses, free trains, free sleeping places are mostly mostly are for Ukrainian mothers and shot and children. So if there was a group of people with non Ukrainian passports, they are asked to stay here and wait for different transports. Sometimes we ask them if they have money, if they have money for the ticket. There are also buses, public and private buses, and they can buy a ticket and go and go, and that's OK. Some of them doesn't have money or they have only hryvnias you could even use after these few days. The currency exchangers won't take it anymore because they have a lot of it. They don't want any hryvnias. So those people don't have any money, actually, because they have something that has no value here. And then they are asked to stay. And this is actually it. It's kind of a problem because we can take documents that will show us that they are really living in Ukraine, that they are running away as everybody. But the priority is always for mothers and children with Ukrainian passports. So that's why we are trying to make different ways of helping them. Me personally, I found some places for people like that that were felt ill. They wanted to sleep for just a few hours and they said, we have money. We will buy tickets, but let us lay down some place for a few hours. So they are allowed to do so. But it's a lot of chaos in here. And actually we are working on the procedures that will manage to help also those people with non Ukrainian passports.

MG: Where have they gone, those people with known Ukrainian passports? Are they still in the town or have they...? Where have they gone?

AREK: No, no. Most of them went out because, because there is a lot of transports and some of them are presented to people who have not Ukrainian passports. So they just simply have to wait. And then they are asked, Now there is your transport if you want to go to [unintelliglbe] or to Wroclaw. Now is the time. Sometimes it's like that. We have some spare train that is not on the schedule and is going somewhere to the West. And there is a lot of those trains. There are more and more of them because different railway companies joined this action. It's not like only the Polish railways, but we have information about Czech Republic railways. They're also coming here and taking. People and I saw it, I saw it that people say no, but we are not Ukrainians, we have Iranian passports are Turkish, so they say, OK, OK, but for you this time is also free. Just get in and go. So this is like we're trying to organise it, but it's it's a little bit difficult because the priority is always for mother and children.

MG: What about the reaction and the response from Polish people, not just the organisations, but people in this town? Is that reaction different for those international students from Iran and from Africa, from India than it is to Ukrainians, do you think?

AREK: Of course it is. You have to remember this is a small town. We have 50 thousands of people. We are on the far far east of the European Union at the far end. There is nearly everybody white in the city. I have a black sister in law, so when even when she comes here, it's like a sensation? Yeah, look at her because we are, everybody here are white, so we are not used to people from different countries. We do not. How to act. People do not know. It's it's a little bit of a problem for us as a society, as a local society. And still, we have great amounts of willingness to help people from Ukraine and still, as I can see it, as am me personally. There is too few support for people with from different countries also.

MG: And you find that difficult. I mean, as somebody who's involved in this work, you find that kind of concerning?

AREK: Yeah, yeah, actually. Of course, we are trying now to contact with different organisations from the Western countries that maybe could help us to build an information point exactly for the non Ukrainian citizens. I'm writing to my friends from different organisations. Just maybe you could give some some volunteers here who speak English, French, for example. There are some people who are talking only Russian and French. And so it's not a place where we have a French language translators just we just don't need it. And so that's why maybe they could send somebody here. We have some propositions of help, but for now it has not yet started. But I think that it's very, very needed.

MG: And hopefully just finally, what have you learnt in doing this? This is, I mean, an experience that you would have never had before? What have you learnt through this?

AREK: I have learnt a lot of things. You know, it's hard to tell in a single sentence, but I didn't believe that there is so much good in people living here. As I said, we are the small closed society and now we are facing something that had never happened before. And we have really a lot of amount of goodwill of people living here to help in different ways. Uh, so this is the greatest experience, actually. And also it's like that I'm taking it very personally. I was really for the first few days I will have I had problems with falling asleep, feeling that I'm in the warm bed with family. I'm safe. I have everything that I need and I have done anything for those people who are in need right now. So when I started to help them to do anything, anything at all, standing here in this in this yellow jacket means that everybody- it's like five people for a minute that are coming together, Excuse me, can you help me? Can you help me? So if you do something a little bit, even tell them where were to go, tell them where to eat. Tell them where to buy a ticket. You have very calm sleep at night. You have feel that you made something important in life. They are. They are. We are exchanging contacts if I have an Iranian friend, which I have helped because she was not allowed to sleep for free and I was I managed it that they were. They took her and give give her a place. So she's writing me that right now I'm in war. So thank you very much and let's stay in touch. So it's a great experience. A lot of new people. Um, and yeah, a way of gaining a calm sleep at night.

MG: Down an alley off a busy street sits one of the city's two synagogues. If you didn't know it was there, you might miss it. It's marked by just a small plaque. Three rabbis from Montreal have travelled here to try to help.

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RABBI REUBEN POPE: I'm Rabbi Reuben Pope of the Beth Israel Better and Congregation in Montreal, where it really a historic Jewish location. The likes of which talk this entire country. I mean, this was an old Jewish community dated 15th century, and during the 20th century, this was a place that was the site of horrific brutality involving the same border that Ukrainians are now crossing. Jews were forced to cross into the Soviet Union immediately after the Nazi occupation in the fall of '39. So I have to say my first thinking is the history because the history is again filled with beautiful moments of great Jewish creativity and great contribution to this country of Poland. And at times this was part of Ukraine. Refer to the area as Galicia, but to come here in a moment when history seems to have been brought back. History has returned where again, we're seeing land wars in Europe, the dislocation of over a million and a half refugees. So we just came here to assist in a small way to bear witness to what's going on here and to provide whatever aid we can send and we brought with us from Canada.

RABBI MARK FISHMAN: Hello, my name is Rabbi Mark Fishman. I am here from the Montreal Jewish community representing Beth Tikva Synagogue, as well as everybody who has been following our journey so far. None of us have any illusions that what we are doing here is nothing other than the tiniest drop in an enormous ocean. We're witnessing a global humanitarian crisis. We're here with goodwill, a few winter coats, which we are giving away and, uh, a few meagre dollars, which we are handing out to those who are in need. We do not have an illusion that this is anything other than what it is. However, we are here on behalf of our communities who, like everybody else, is watching the television, listening to the news and wringing their hands, feeling helpless as as we see human suffering. So we are here to simply bear witness to what it is that is happening and to be the representatives of our communities back home in Montreal to be able to say to everybody that we were taking you along with us.

RABBI ADAM CHAYA: Hi, I'm Rabbi Adam Chaya from Montreal here, because this is where our hearts and this is where our souls of have led us. This is a great humanitarian crisis taking place right now, and this is a place that's close to our hearts. This this land where we're standing now in Poland on the Ukrainian border. This is a land that's filled with both the richness of of our history, of Jewish history and also the greatest horrors that humanity has ever seen. And my family personally comes from, or parts of my family come from this very area come from what's known as Galizia, and they left as refugees also. And unfortunately and tragically, in the days where they left, there weren't people waiting on the other sides of the borders to help them out. And and so here we come to stand here and to help out in whatever way we can and and really to represent our communities and represent all those back home who are asking the very simple question What can we do? And so we're here to find answers to that question as well.

MG: What do you make of the sense of solidarity that's been shown in this country and from other nations? We've seen people who have driven for hours and hours and hours from Germany, from Belgium, from Estonia, from across Europe to come here to pick up people who have fled war and they're trying to find somewhere safe to go. What do you make of that?

RABBI REUBEN POPE: I would just say that history people have learnt something. And as Rabbi Schneider said, I mean, really so beautifully is that in 80 years ago, during World War Two, when there was a flood of refugees, there was no one waiting on the other side and people have learnt something. And to say that nothing's changed and everything isn't true, we were in Warsaw yesterday, a flood of volunteers in Warsaw, the refugee centres bringing goods, a little girl bringing a sled, Rabbi Chaya mentioned to us in the car, that she had just herself received as a as a gift, now giving to kids from the Ukraine. Talking about families, you've seen it mothers and children. The men are back home fighting women and small children whose entire lives have been ripped apart and people are responding. People here in Poland are opening up their homes. The response here is is beautiful and and they deserve all the praise in the world. The problem is that the trigger for all of this has yet to be stopped. The Russians haven't been stopped and therefore how does this end? And what will happen when the number of refugees go up to two or three or, God forbid, four and five million refugees? What happens then? And Canada has to respond along with other countries, and we met with the ambassador from Canada to Paul about what it is that Canada can do on a humanitarian level. This is, again, as we said, a global crisis. This is no Polish crisis or Ukrainian crisis.

MG: There is a substantial Ukrainian Canadian community, but also Canada as a nation that over many years has welcomed refugees, has has brought people in. That's changed, of course, over the course of history, but it is a welcoming country now. What would you want Canada to do in this context?

RABBI ADAM CHAYA: I think there are a number of different approaches that Canada could take and certainly on the immigration front, allowing for people to resettle whether it's permanently or temporarily, but at least to to regain their footing. Keeping in mind that many of the people who are here as refugees have been separated from their families and many times their husbands and fathers are back home fighting and and they're hoping that one day soon the families will be reunited. But until that can happen, we can do. We can do a lot back home to to help people to get people work together, to allow people to find places, to stay within our own communities and to give them the love and the warmth that that that they're looking for at this time. We met a woman just yesterday whose daughter lives in Montreal. And when we asked her, we said, Well, what do you need? How can we? How can we help? She said, Look, I have so much gratitude that the Polish people have stepped up and I have everything I need for myself in terms of I have clothing, I have all the food that I need. That's all here. They're giving that to me. What I really need is to be together with my family is to find a way to get back, to get to Canada, to find a way to be together with my daughter. And that's that's part of what Canada can do is to facilitate those reunions.

MG: What is the message that you're giving back to your communities back in in Canada about about why this matters? The world is a big place and it's a difficult place and there's a lot that's going on and something even like a war can seem far away. We're here, and it's not that far away. What's the message that you want to send back to?

RABBI MARK FISHMAN: I think that the world is a lot smaller today than it's ever been through social media and mass communications technology. A person turns on their smartphone and sees on their doorstep a war zone and a refugee crisis that suddenly becomes inside of their own personal space. And for us to be walking the streets of Montreal one morning and walking the streets of the Ukrainian border that later afternoon, the world is a small place and with that, our shared humanity. Becomes a lot more relevant and obvious to anybody that cares about others. These streets have seen the beast of man and they're now seeing the best of men. And that's the message that we wish to take back to our communities.

RABBI REUBEN POPE: You know, it's also important for us to act as advocates. That means people in Canada, read the reports here. You're reporting. But to get an eyewitness report to encourage our government to do what they can to open their hearts to the refugees from from Ukraine, provide medical care hospitals, whatever it is, there's so many things that can be done. A lot of sick kids are coming out of Ukraine, as you know, and so much needs to be done. But I have to tell you, for the Jewish community, this is our hope. You know, our mythical hope. You know, we you drive through Poland and we see the names of our imagination. These are the cities of our grandparents and so many of our members of our community, you know, have their roots in Poland and Ukraine. And these were the places of our history. And now they've returned to history in so many ways. And in terms of popular attention and and to see this crisis, which is a land war in Europe, a country unprovoked to go ahead and attack another country and to bomb indiscriminately civilian there no pretence of military targeting here. No pretence of it. Bombing cities, triggering a flood of refugees, killing innocents in Ukraine. It's an absolute tragedy and the world needs to step up. I think Putin underestimated the Western response. I think the Western response has been better than many thought it would be several months ago. It's been better. But right now, there he is. He is marching challenged only by the heroism of Ukrainians, which is again an extraordinary inspiration to the world as his president, President Zelensky. But again, the human element here of people's lives being completely destroyed and fleeing the only home they've ever known and the world has to step up. And it is, and that's a remarkably beautiful thing.

RABBI MARK FISHMAN: I think when we are in these first few days of this crisis. It is important not to be naive in thinking that we understand what the reality is and is going to be a month from now, six months from now, potentially years from now. The ramifications of this first beginning may yet be unfolding in ways that nobody can foresee.

RABBI ADAM CHAYA: Our being here as well is part very much of our religious tradition and that, you know, there are two questions that one can ask when confronted with a challenging situation, you can ask Why? Why is Putin doing this? Why are the Russians? Why are they...? This could have been so easily avoided. This whole crisis could have just not existed had they not invaded. But then there's the other question which is What can I do? And in our tradition, that's the question we ask first. What can I do to make it better? What can I do to help out even a very small way? And then the big questions we're going to ask, we're going to ask much later on, and hopefully we can make a difficult time for some people just a little bit a little bit better by being here, by distributing the gifts that we brought from Canada.

MG: Bearing witness is also just important to actually seeing things with your own eyes. It's a powerful thing. Glad to meet you here to hear about the work that you're doing. Thank you very much.

RABBI REUBEN POPE: Thank you.

RABBI ADAM CHAYA: Thank you.

RABBI MARK FISHMAN: Thank you.

MG: That's The Current for this Thursday from Poland. Before we leave you, Khrystyna Soloviy is a singer and songwriter in Kyev. She released this demo just days before Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Here she is with a song called I Bring Peace. I Matt Galloway in Poland. Thanks for listening.

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[Song]

The Current Transcript for March 10, 2022

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

At the Ukraine-Poland border, ordinary people step up to help refugees thrust into a crisis – Part 1

Ukrainians are 'fighting our fight' for democracy and freedom, says Ambassador Larisa Galadza

At the Ukraine-Poland border, ordinary people step up to help refugees thrust into a crisis – Part 3

Thursday March 10, 2022 Full Transcript

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