“There is a War”

There is a humanitarian disaster now in Europe. I know, because I witnessed it firsthand.

I am fortunate to work for NICE — a high tech company whose CEO — Barak Eilam is a true leader, who differentiates day-to-day business and world-wide events.

When the war began in Ukraine, Barak sent an internal email, asking if there are volunteers to travel to Poland and help the Ukrainian refugees.

He got hundreds of resounding “I volunteer” replies.

I was one of the twelve people finally chosen to form the task force, led by the towering and wonderful Chris Wooten who assembled the team, formed the agenda, had everyone contribute (he didn’t need to motivate anyone) and start off a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We got volunteers from the US, the UK, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Israel.

Our colleagues in the Alkmaar office in the Netherlands raided the local stores, bought over five hundred backpacks and equipment for women and children for the first 24 hours after crossing the border on foot: a power bank for the depleted cellphones to call back home, thermal socks and ponchos, a pad and a pen, sanitary disposables for women, power bars and even a small plush animal for the children, as well as the Czech office employees who bought additional thermal jackets and drove from Prague to our assembly point — Krakow, Poland.

We met for the first-time face to face in Krakow, late Friday night, getting our bearings and refining our plans for the morning and the day to come.

During Saturday morning’s breakfast, while at the hotel, we were approached by two Polish firefighters who rescued pets on the Polish border and brought back with them a mother and her small daughter and a friend of the mother, who walked for 15 hours straight from Lviv, Ukraine to the Polish border, looking for someone who could help pay for their stay until they could arrange a flight out of Poland.

We were happy to assist, found them lodgings and paid for the plane tickets, sending them to Istanbul, Turkey, where they have friends.

I gave the girl a drawing one of my daughters drew exactly for that purpose. A huge smile broke out on her face and our hearts melted for this brave little girl.

After that, determined to start reconning the area of Przemyśl, the closest city to the border (10km from the Ukrainian border, 2.5 hours’ drive from Krakow) we headed there, in multiple SUVs (the importance of which will later become apparent).

We got to Przemyśl (pronounced “Pshemish”) in the late afternoon, directly to the largest refugee center of the 35 the city opened at the time.

In the parking lot of a once Texco Supermarket we first witnessed chaos at its fullest — a collection of vans, buses, tents, people walking about and a complete sense of shock.

Entering the refugee camp, we were immersed with the sights, sounds and smells of the outcome of the war — rows upon rows of cots, hosting huge amounts of women, children, elderlies and anything in between aimlessly occupying them, trying to figure out what’s next.

We moved to the back, to the huge warehouse where pallets upon pallets of any sort of donated proceeds were streaming in — baby food; dry food (flour, sugar, pasta, salt etc.); hygiene (soaps, shampoo, napkins etc.); sweets; clothes and so on.

Some of it was bundled together and we quickly were put to work to sort the donations into categories and bunch them together for later distribution to other refugee camps.

We worked quickly, fervently even and were able to sort a few pallets. When we looked up, we understood we cleared fractions of the sent equipment — the amount is overwhelming.

Once we finished our work there, we went to the nearby University, whose dean kindly donated storage room for our backpacks which arrived with the trucks earlier on Saturday.

We unloaded the trucks with all the boxed backpacks and the rest of the equipment we brought with us and headed back to Krakow, arriving near midnight and planning the next day.

The refugee center team explained that they didn’t need any more clothes so we don’t really need to get there to distribute the backpacks. The question was — what’s next then?

“A little of the Light, repels a lot of the Darkness”

Sunday morning’s breakfast brought a real surprise — Barak, our CEO flew over and joined us in person to head out and start the distribution operation.

We decided to start the drive to Przemyśl’s University to combine the stuff we brought from the Prague office into the backpacks.

While driving there, our SUV (coincidentally, consisting of all three Israeli representatives) took an initiative to drive to the border itself, in Medyka crossing, which is the only crossing where refugees come on foot to see if we could find a better distribution point and bring more value to the refugees as soon as they cross the border into Poland.

While our colleagues started with the final packing of the backpacks, we went to the border and started scouring for a more strategic point, which we found.

Excited that we could be of more help and assistance, we headed back to the University, joined our team and started loading our cars with the backpacks.

We were able to load most of them between the cars we had and headed towards the border.

Once we arrived, we chose a point on the path leading from the border towards the bus stop where the refugees were being boarded and headed west, to Przemyśl mostly but also to other cities and refugee camps.

We started distributing them to the people passing by us — shellshocked women, silent or crying infants and sad and weary elderly people, all fleeing their former lives and moving into the unknown.

We used the fact some of us know Ukrainian or Russian to better explain the contents of the backpacks and translate their questions, helping those who needed it to carry their possessions towards the bus stop.

Some were either too proud to accept or too tired to acknowledge our approach. Some were looking for other things (I’ll touch on that in my conclusion) and some didn’t have the power, the will or even the hands to carry the backpacks we gave out.

They packed their entire world into a suitcase or a trolly or a rucksack, and some had only their clothes, with absolutely nothing else.

“Where do we go from here?”

We made some new friends by partnering with other organizations who came to the aid of the refugees.

We understood the refugees weren’t looking for clothes, bulk or extra stuff — they needed the absolute pragmatic basics — a power bank goes a long way in communicating back home and planning the next steps; a SIM-card or a pre-paid phone would help too; the plush animals were a huge success with the children but they need to be as small as possible, not to take up too much space from the precious little they have.

The world is in turmoil. We can’t abide and stand aside while these horrific events unfold right in front of our eyes.

I’m part of a people who underwent such atrocities (and even worse) less than 80 years ago. We always asked “where were the world nations then?”. We can’t fathom asking this question now. We can’t afford to idly stand by and do nothing.

This situation must stop, children need to grow; women need to live and everyone deserves a chance at life.

I’m not getting into the political sides of this. I’ll leave it to others to dwell on. From a purely humane standpoint, these actions must cease, this situation must be resolved. There is a whole generation of Ukrainian children who will grow with post-traumatic stress disorder. They’ve left their homes, their family and friends, their schools and their toys behind, not sure if they’ll ever come back or if they’ll even have a place to come back to.

The Ukrainian women need a place to live, a place to work and earn money to provide for their children and a hope to reunite with their spouses and rebuild their lives.

The Ukrainian men need to reunite with their spouses and put the horrors of war behind them.

We, the people of the world must do everything possible to stop this and find a peaceful resolution to this situation.

This is our time to rise for what’s good and just. We need to show these women and children that hope is not lost and that we can make a change and give them a modicum of peace.

Now is the time to share and keep the news and momentum on the required assistance to these refugees. As soon as the novelty wears off, the cameras will turn off and the public’s eye will turn somewhere else — these people will be doomed. No housing, no education, no jobs and no income — what will become of them?

I want to end on a positive note — I need to believe in the good of humanity and I’ve witnessed it first hand when I was surrounded by volunteers from so many cultures and countries. I don’t remember the last time I saw people with so many different accents all working together, in complete harmony just to help others in need.

If you take one thing from this outburst — please share it and don’t let this die down. This must not dissipate and quiet down until we are able to help all the refugees.

Thanks for reading this — please share it on every possible platform.