“Soul Cries” as Ukrainian Refugees Flood Poland

A mother nursing her baby, a parent and child feeding their pet dog, a family sitting still on a bench with exhausted expressions. Most of them were women and children, and the bags, suitcases, clothes, and stuffed animals beside them told of the reality of having fled the war. There were roughly 200 of them. There was a line at a special booth where food and daily necessities were provided, and volunteers from various countries were busy dealing with the situation.

Poland has accepted approximately 2.29 million refugees from Ukraine (March 27, according to the United Nations). Kraków, the second largest city in Poland, is a beautiful old city registered as a World Heritage site, but its central station was overflowing with refugees who had crossed the border one after another.

Sitting on a bench in a train station with her three sons, Ilona (pseudonym, 31) arrived in Kraków after taking trains and buses from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.

“The day after my youngest son celebrated his fourth birthday, Russia launched a full-scale invasion. The peaceful days of celebrating with a small family party seemed to be a lie.”

As the war intensified, Ilona and her husband took refuge in the western city of Lviv. However, her husband volunteered to join the local defense forces, and Lviv was becoming increasingly dangerous due to daily warnings, so she had to flee Ukraine, leaving him behind. The Regional Defense Corps is a unit under the Ministry of Defense, composed of citizens.

 

“I cry with worry when I think of my husband. My children may possibly never see him again. The school and other facilities in my hometown were destroyed by Russian airstrikes. My parents still live there. My mother’s health is not good, so my father is taking care of her. I can only pray to God for their safety.”

Ilona plans to take refuge in neighboring Slovakia.

The majority of the displaced are women and children because men aged 18-60 are restricted from leaving the country in order to strengthen the defense system in Ukraine. Even so, young men were seen very rarely in the train station.

One of them, Artem, 32, was born in Mariupol’, a fierce battleground. When the full-scale Russian invasion began, he and his wife were in the plane on their way back to Ukraine from a trip to Egypt. However, the airport where they were scheduled to land was closed, and they had to turn back to Egypt. After that, he arrived in Kraków via Hungary and other countries.

“My parents told me that the apartment in Mariupolis’ where I lived had been blown up. They were safe in their bunker, but there was no water, electricity, or gas in the destroyed city. I don’t want to go back to Ukraine to die.”

There are several other places in Kraków where displaced people live together. One of them is a closed shopping mall. Cots were lined up in a space that had been used for tenants, and the air was thick with the smell of life for about 200 people. Ludumira, 47, who has been living as an evacuee for the past 10 days, said, “The air was thick with the smell of life.”

“The food is not good. I want to live in a better environment. Can you help me find an apartment where I can live?”

During the course of the interview, she complained repeatedly. She seems to be feeling the stress of living in an unfamiliar group. On the other hand, there were evacuees whose companies paid for their apartments in Kraków, creating an apparent disparity between the two. However, for everyone, there is no change in their feelings for their hometown of birth.

“What do you want now?”

When asked this question, all expressed their earnest desire to go home as soon as possible.

When will the day come when the hopes of the displaced will be fulfilled?

From the April 15, 2022 issue of FRIDAY