USTRZYKI DOLNE, Poland — Polish people know the pain of being invaded. This is what an opera singer told me as she handed out hot stew to Ukrainian refugees in a tent near the mountainous border between Ukraine and Poland on a chilly night in early March. She had planned to go skiing. She came here instead.
“We were in the same situation in 1939,” said Susan Grey, the opera singer, referring to the Polish people during World War II. “We didn’t have such an opportunity to be welcomed. We didn’t have a place to go.”
It feels as if the entire country of Poland has joined the effort to welcome Ukrainian refugees. I met software developers and chief executives who had taken time off work to drive supplies to the border. Hotels in Warsaw are offering free rooms, insurance companies free insurance. About 90 percent of Poles say that Poland should open its doors to Ukrainian refugees. It’s a stunning contrast with 2015, when the pope himself couldn’t persuade Poland to accept Syrians fleeing civil war. Just over three months ago, Polish police fired water cannons at Iraqi and Syrian asylum seekers to push them back into Belarus.
