Humbling hour spent in the home of Kasia and Marcin. They’re just one of the enormous numbers of Polish families who’ve taken in a Ukrainian family, in this case Oksana and her two boys. A family of four has become a family of seven overnight-and an open ended commitment at that. 
Poland has taken in over a million Ukrainians without refugee camps and that is down to the extraordinary generosity of Polish families like K&M. Without that charity Oksana and her boys would have had nowhere to go. K&M tell us lots of families in their street have done the same
Kasia & Marcin signed up with the council saying they’d host a family (they’d agreed to do it even before the war started). On Wed they got a call asking if they could pick up Oksana’s family from the station. They agreed. They’d never met before that day. Now they live together.
And get this- Oksana’s boys are already in school. One of the local schools has put on an extra class for kids to be taught in Ukrainian before they can integrate fully into the local system. Marcin phoned on Friday. By Monday morning they were in. Extraordinary speed.
It’s a huge commitment. But they say they felt obliged, that there was no other choice for them, given events. They say they have the space so the sacrifice isn’t enormous. But they told me of a local family in a tower block, with two bedrooms who have taken in a family of 5.
The memories of the Soviet period linger long. Kasia and Marcin say that they think their parents and grandparents survived the war and what followed partly thanks to the kindness of strangers. That is part of what motivates them now.
Oksana is from a town about 7km from Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. A few days after her arrival in Poland she spent a terrifying night unable to get through to her husband or eldest son, who is still in the area. She barely slept for two days. She calls Putin “a terrorist.”
The commitment is a big one. Oksana’s kids need clothes and she needs money. Kasia told me of a heartbreaking moment- Oksana brought savings with her to change into zloty. They went to the bureau de change only to discover her currency is now basically worthless. She had nothing.
They’ve already been on days out as an extended family. They went rock climbing at the weekend. The kids spent Sunday playing football in the garden. None of them can speak each other’s language well but are getting by in Polish/Ukrainian/Russian patois. Kids are the best of all.
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