I met spouses Nadia and Michal in Rabka, a Polish village in a mountain area, where over 2,000 refugees have settled after the war in Ukraine. In 2015, the two opened an orphanage in Velyki Mosty, a small town in Ukraine whose Jewish population was exterminated in 1941. For a while, Michal worked in construction while studying for his Philosophy MA; Nadia is a psychologist. A few years after they met, they decided to open this “family orphanage”, as it is called in Ukraine, and Michal even worked on the building itself. But everything changed on the 24th of February 2022. That morning, Nadia and Michal got the children at the orphanage on a bus and left for Lvov, from where they crossed the border into Poland. “Our area hadn’t been bombed yet, it was still quiet, but we were responsible for the children. We had to leave as quickly as possible,” says Nadia. “Everything was done in a hurry, we packed so little. Clothes, some toys, that was about it… It’s so sad having to leave a place you’ve just finished setting up, a comfortable home the children had just started to enjoy.”
After reaching Poland, they spent a few days in a hostel in Krakow, then someone helped find lodgings for a longer period at this bed and breakfast in Rabka, where I met them. Being a carer for a group of children, Michal did not fall under the incidence of the martial law, so he was allowed to leave the country. (“I have people I can fight for here.”) As I talk to them, I realise there is a whole chain of abandonment, only made more complicated by the war. There are 31 children, aged 2 to 17, from all corners of Ukraine, including Mariupol and Kyiv. After the 24th of February, they were forced to abandon their new home in Velyki Mosty and leave behind their native country. Moreover, after they reached Poland, their orphanage back in Velyki Mosty became a place of refuge for other Ukrainians who had fled Mariupol, Kharkiv, Herson a.s.o.
“That is the odd part – we are refugees here, they are refugees in their own country,” says Michal. “Now we send each other photos over WhatsApp…”
As if all this wasn’t enough, there has been another moment of rupture, which Nadia and Michal describe with shaky voices.
“The most complicated thing about an orphanage like this, which is meant to be like a family, is that a time comes when they turn 18 and have to leave,” says Michal. “I know that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but that moment when we part is terrible. At least now we’re all here, where it’s peaceful and quiet. But if the war ever ends, we would like to go back home.”
Testimony donated to the Museum of Abandonment for the Abandonment Baggage campaign. This project is financed by CARE through the Sera Foundation, Care France, and FONPC. The testimony has been collectd by journalist Ionuț Sociu, who has also written on this subject for the Scena 9 platform: https://www.scena9.ro/article/ucraina-polonia-refugiati
