In school in Poland, I was taught about two world wars on the European continent. I never imagined that in the 21st century, I would be able to read about tanks destroying cities in a newspaper rather than in a history textbook, and see daily images of refugees carrying suitcases, fleeing cities as those escaping the Nazi invaders did. 

The war in Ukraine seems to have caught many of my student generation off-guard. Although educated in Poland, I am now an undergraduate at St Benet’s Hall in Oxford, reading Classics. I was born well after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. To me, that period of revolution, the wall smashing and statue toppling, seemed almost like ancient history. 

I’ve now woken up. It was clear that the Russian military build-up along the Ukrainian border indicated that Putin would use force to seize control of eastern Ukraine. Although I may have deep down believed it could happen, every time I thought about it I went into denial thinking  “surely in today’s world that’s impossible”.

Only recently my peers and myself were closely following the war in Syria, the civil unrest in Myanmar, and the internal conflict within Ethiopia, but we were detached. It was only when a conflict came so close to my own country, my own border, my own home, that my perspective and that of many Poles changed.

 It may seem horrible to admit but following the conflicts in distant parts of the world can be similar to watching a football game: you choose a side you support and watch the drama unfold on satellite television. You might be even emotionally engaged, the score might make your week fabulous or miserable, but you remain detached from any genuine personal connection to the conflict itself. 

Of course, I met people that were sometimes more emotionally connected to those conflicts, but never did I imagine myself asking:  “Are we next?”, “Is it safe in our homes?’ and most importantly “how can we help Ukraine?”. 

I know there have been previous brutal military confrontations in Europe. Georgia, Kosovo, Crimea, and only recently the short period of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan come to mind. These conflicts established a certain precedent and protocol about how territorial disputes in Europe work.

Most were bloodless with a small amount of fighting and relatively limited open hostilities and none with an open declaration of war. None escalated far enough to be labeled as such. Putin, of course, refuses to call it war, opting for the term “special military operations”. 

Although this conflict is different, to somebody who is Polish, and lives in Warsaw, it all seems so bleakly familiar. One can feel the ghosts of Polish history. This is why recent events have had such an immense psychological impact on so many in Poland. The Russian military entered Ukraine on the grounds of protecting the Russian-speaking minority, which Putin claimed was oppressed by what he described as a “fascist regime that is the Ukrainian government”. Many in Poland are experiencing a deja-vu as it was on the same grounds the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on the 17th of September 1939.

Vladislav Surkov a former advisor to the Russian president stated, “Forceful coercion for brotherly relations, this is the only method that has historically proven effective when it comes to Ukraine. I do not think that any other will be invented.”. This approach reminds many of the situation in Poland around 1980 when the communist government introduced martial law out of fear that the Soviet Union would want to help their communist brothers in Poland through military intervention. 

The Russian excuse for an invasion is not the only thing that makes Poles look back to World War 2. The masses of refugees pouring in from Ukraine brings backstories of our grandparents who had to leave everything they had and flee the approaching armies of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

 In Krakow, now one of the biggest transit points for refugees, people point to the aftermath of the Warsaw uprising which was the last time waves of innocent people fleeing violence came to the city. Maybe that is why everyone tries to help. The other day I was going through the Central Train station in Warsaw where I saw an elderly couple giving out food from a suitcase to refugees sleeping on the floor. In a taxi, I saw that the driver had a bag of sweets on the passenger seat. When asked about it he replied, “I volunteer to drive refugees to help centres. Most of them are women with children. Adults understand what is happening, kids don’t, so when I give them these sweets they forget about everything and for a moment they are just happy.”

The current situation in Ukraine seems painfully close to home for many Poles, which is why no one here shies away from helping those escaping Russian violence. Poland’s sometimes troubled history with Ukraine has been put aside as we witness a common struggle of both our peoples. We were brought up on the stories from World War 2 told by our grandparents, and awful stories about communist authoritarian rule by our parents.  Now we are united in exorcising our historical ghosts by helping Ukraine. 

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