Tuesday, March 26

This is how the war is lived in the Polish city of Rzeszów


the commercial area full-market, located in the Polish city of Rzeszow, throws today a completely different image than the one it showed two months ago. where there was yesterday fashion, electronics and shoe storestoday there is one laundry, a wardrobe made up of donated garments and a dining room. The central space, yesterday flooded with carefree people fiddling with the bags of their new acquisitions, today dawns furrowed bedsoccupied by those who have lost everything on the other side of the border.

Less than three hours from that refugee camp of the Europe of the 21st century, thousands of people wait crowded in Truskavets, a Ukrainian border city that was once the most unique resort in Ukraine, and that today provides shelter, in its hotels, to the thousands of people fleeing the war. An apparently safe place where, however, they have already been heard, in recent days, the first air raid sirens that advance anything but good omens.

Some 300 kilometers east from the chaos of Truskavets, their Polish neighbors in Rzeszów wait ready, day and night, to attend to the hundreds of displaced who arrive every day in the city. There they meet, at first, with Klaudia Lebko, one of those responsible for the resource, who strives, with the help of a large team of volunteers, to ensure that the incessant trickle of families who pass through her door do not lack for anything. Either company. “This is the first place they find when they arrive from Ukraine, because of its proximity to the border. The most important thing for us is to provide them with a safe and quality place to be”, explains Lebko. Rzeszów, once a quiet place with few shocks, has unintentionally become cozy city.

“This is the first place they find when they arrive from Ukraine, because of its proximity to the border. The most important thing for us is to provide them with a safe and quality place to be”

A circumstance that embraces its population, which has turned to its neighbors. “I come here every day, as a volunteer, since I get off work. It is important that we do this. It doesn’t matter if they are Ukrainian or from somewhere else. They are having a hard time, and we must help them. They come here and they have nothing”, explains one of the volunteers, Gienia Stecko. His routine, like that of all the inhabitants of Rzeszów, has been disrupted for more than a month, when he began to go to the Full Market to lend a hand in whatever was necessary.

Also Read  Parts of Queensland expecting highest May rainfall on record with storms to lash state | Australia weather

All help is welcome: the space is set up to provide shelter to more than 500 people simultaneously. Those responsible for the structure calculate that, just for its facilities, they have traveled more than 3,000 people since the beginning of the invasion, without counting the other hundreds of thousands who pass through the city to move to other places. Because if Rzeszow has been transformed into something in recent times, apart from being a welcoming city, it is transit city: a first stop on a journey with an uncertain destination. “In theory, they can only spend two days here, but if they are waiting for their relatives, or have to catch a plane or a train to another place, there is no problem in staying longer,” explains Lebko.

“Here they have a shower, laundry, toilets, three hot meals a day, snacks. We try to make them feel at home.”

The Poles have had to become, against the clock, experts in humanitarian disaster management. They have done it based on observation, and, above all, empathy. The first attention given to those who arrive fleeing from a war is basic: helping them to situate themselves and recompose themselves. “Here they have a shower, laundry, toilets, three hot meals a day, appetizers. we tried make them feel at home. We know that it is not enough, but we give them the best we have”, says Klaudia Lebko. The attention is not limited only to the essential: in the structure they also provide information and comfort. In recent days, the staff has focused, complicit but avoiding being intrusive, on a young man who, a priori, goes unnoticed in the hustle and bustle of the former shopping area. He is under 16 years old and comes from Mariupol. He does it alone. “There was only one seat on the bus, and his parents decided it was him. He hasn’t heard from them for six days,” says the center’s psychologist, without taking her eyes off the young man.

At 10:00 p.m., a closed night in Poland and with commercial and hotel establishments closing, the displaced Ukrainians Full Market continues to arrive, with hardly any belongings on top, with many doubts and some duels. Most want to trust that the journey to nowhere, stopping at Rzeszów, will have a return ticket, but others are not so clear about what their future will be when it’s all over. It is the case of Angelika Zolotoverkhova, Russian by birth but with her permanent residence in Ukraine. If the situation does not change, she will not be able to return which he considers his country, even if armed hostilities cease. The war between the two nations, sisters yesterday, is being followed these days by another conflict: a social fracture between two peoples that were the same on so many occasions and that will no longer be able to coexist as before.

Also Read  Cloud, flash drive or elsewhere, back up your files

“I have a Russian passport, but I have lived in Ukraine for 20 years, my daughter was born there and my husband is Ukrainian. I have no idea what will happen from now on”

“I have been living in Ukraine for 20 years, my daughter was born there and my husband is Ukrainian. I have no idea what is going to happen from now on, nor when will my daughter be able to return to meet her father”, she laments. Her husband, a sculptor by profession, is waiting in the country to be recruited due to the Martial law, which prevents men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the Ukrainian borders, whether or not they have completed military service. Thousands of families are broken, as a consequence, these days: on the one hand, women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities who cross European borders to reach safety. For other, fathers and husbandswho resist attacks by hiding in basements and bunkers, fighting in the streets or carrying out volunteer work to assist their people at the border.

Along with Angelika Zolotoverkhova travels her friend Natalia Petryk. Their daughters go to the same school. These days, they share a journey until France, where some friends will welcome you. They don’t know for how long. Meanwhile, they make a stop in Rzeszów, from where they take the opportunity to communicate with the husbands they leave behind at the front and to Sort your priorities.It is still difficult for them to understand when this point was reached. “I remember the first elections of Vladimir Putin. I never voted for him. Everybody was impressed: how young, how smart, plus he’s from the KGB. Look now. We never imagined this, and that we had the war of donbas next door, but for all of us it was a local conflict. We did not imagine this even in the previous days, when all the newspapers warned of the invasion. We couldn’t believe it”, they reflect, while they install the few belongings they carry in Full Market. Around her, children play, oblivious to the drama experienced by the adults who accompany them. Their laughter, as they run through the empty walls of what were once stores, collide with the spirits of their mothers, who watch them with an expression of sad affection. “They are the joy of here”, Appreciate a volunteer.

Also Read  The Peruvian Congress discusses this Monday a new motion of censure against President Castillo

Related news

Demonstrations of recognition of the work that volunteers and citizens of the Polish border carry out with their Ukrainian neighbors have been carried out throughout this month by authorities and institutions, knowing that the measures promoted by official channels would not be worth you’re welcome without the solidarity of the people.The last to do so was, a few days ago, the celebrity hollywoodian Sean Penn, who came to the surface to thank, visibly excited, the work that its volunteers carry out there. “We are facing another natural disaster. Never before has the world experienced such hospitality by a neighboring country in a refugee crisis,” the actor acknowledged to the press. Penn was, in the days prior to his visit, recording a documentary about the war in Ukraine, a conflict with which he feels committed and involved to the point where he even threatened to “melt down the statuettes of his Oscar awards” if the Ukrainian president was not allowed, Volodymyr Zelenskyintervene live during the ceremony.

“Never before has the world experienced such hospitality from a neighboring country in a refugee crisis.”

He went to Rzeszów thanks to his charitable foundation, CORE, (Community Organized Relief Effort), through which it signed a collaboration agreement with the border city to provide economic, training, logistical and psychological support to the center, its users and its volunteers. From there he also took the opportunity to send a message to the thousands of people who open their homes to Ukrainian citizens fleeing from war, they provide comfort and become family in the most difficult time of their lives. “I know of no other value than open the door to those who need it”, he asserted on the spot.


www.elperiodico.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *