Tuesday evening, somewhere on the highway near Leipzig in eastern Germany. Ten vans with Ukrainian women and children are on their way to the Netherlands, fleeing the Russian invasion. There are sixty of them, plus a dog and a cat. Earlier that day, they were picked up at the border in Poland by Patrick from Eindhoven and a whole team of volunteers. They’ve been traveling up and down all week, helping refugees and taking them to a safe place.
It is the fourth trip in a short time that Patrick and his friends make to Krakow. They hardly sleep, work long days and are tired, but the will to help is endless. More than one million refugees have crossed the border near Poland since the war broke out in Ukraine.
“It’s a drop in the ocean, but we have to do something. And for these people you make a difference,” he says.
So far they have taken 160 people. “And that’s 160 intensely sad stories,” says Patrick. “A woman who left her house with nothing but her cat. A man who speaks English quite well, and once in the Netherlands returns with us to help other refugees with translation. A 13-year-old boy who worries whether he will gets along with the girls in the Netherlands, because he doesn’t know the language. They are terrible stories, but also touching, beautiful and ugly.”
Once there, the atrocities come to life, according to Patrick. “People arrive in Poland displaced, confused and tired. They are scared and sad, separated from their husbands, brothers and fathers, because they all have to stay behind to defend their country. And there are children walking around who are forced to have all their friends left behind, their school and sports club.”
“Like so many others, I was incredibly attracted to the news about the war,” says the Eindhoven resident. “I had just driven 1200 kilometers home after a skiing holiday and thought, then I can also drive to the border to get people.”
“Then I asked one of my best buddies if he wanted to come along. He agreed immediately. It was a misguided plan, but you have to start somewhere. And it’s unbelievable how the willingness spreads like an oil slick.”
It was a process of trial and error, he looks back. “We needed transport, drivers willing to drive, interpreters and housing. And at the same time make sure that the word is spread within the Ukrainian community that if you want to come to the Netherlands that we can help you.” And the tam-tam does its job, because Patrick is bombarded with messages from people who hope they can ride with him to the Netherlands.
“Yesterday someone told me that there were two girls at the Berlin station. Their parents, a nurse and a soldier, are still in the war zone. They just took their children across the border to get them to safety. I called my sister: can you do something for me? And at the end of the day they were showering on the couch at her house.”
“This is the first time that everything, my work, my family, has fallen out of my hands to do this,” says Patrick. “And it’s true that if you take one step, you see it so close and then you don’t want to stop.”
The procession came home around two or three o’clock in the morning, only to leave soon after. “The list of refugees continues to grow. That is why we are going that way with two coaches on Thursday. I expect that we can take 110 people with us.”