Huizinga: “She saw the war start from her balcony. She literally saw the Russians invade, the explosions and the fire. She panics every time something flies over. She can no longer do anything. There are many , especially people from the east of Ukraine. But also people who come from Kyiv and have experienced it firsthand. After two years of relative peace, the panic is still there. Then you can boldly say that those Ukrainians can return, but then you are purely concerned with politics, not with people. If you have not experienced this, then you cannot judge it. I used to be very down-to-earth about it, but that has changed now that I have experienced it.”
What do you do in those kinds of situations?
“Well, those refugees of ours (Huizinga offers shelter to several Ukrainian refugees at his company, ed.) sit in the bathroom, where there are only thick stone walls. If such a thing lands nearby, they will not be hit by shrapnel. They do this because they have experience with it and because friends or family of theirs have probably been killed in bombings.”