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In Big-Hearted Poland They Hate Only One Man: The New Hitler
Across the expanse of the railway station I am drawn to him, sitting on a bench among dozens of other Ukrainian refugees. Perhaps it is something in his eyes, tired but defiant, or perhaps it is the sight of his younger brother weeping as his mother sleeps fitfully after a journey of indeterminate length. The boy beckons. “I can speak English a little,” he whispers. “My name is Oleksandr. Would you like to talk to me?”
I am in the Polish border town of Przemysl, and, to be frank, I am struggling to take it all in. It is a daunting privilege to witness the scenes of refugees huddling together in the cold, eyes haunted, bodies exhausted, fathers and husbands left behind to face pitiless bombing.
…With each story, a new pixel emerges in the panorama of Putin’s unprovoked war, a new insight into its iniquity. In a narrow corridor I speak to Louisa, a grandmother whose memories reach back to the Second World War, sitting beside her daughter, Andzela, who is in a wheelchair after a stroke three years ago, and two grandchildren. She is a retired chef and talks proudly of her speciality of rice, meat, grated carrots and onions. You can see her strength, her warmth, her wide brown eyes projecting into my heart. “We didn’t want to leave our home,” she says. “We wanted to defy Putin. But we will not surrender; our men will keep going till the end.”
And this mention of Putin hints at perhaps the most salient factor in this border town. Rich and poor, Polish and Ukrainian, relief workers and police officers, all are united in one visceral emotion. They hate the Russian leader. They do so with such feeling that many recoil when I mention his name. The hatred is not directed against the Russian people but against Putin himself: the man whose psychopathy led to this conflagration and the greatest European migration crisis since the Second World War.
“I am Russian by descent but I want to kill Putin,” says Anna, holding the hand of her daughter. “I feel guilty to use these words. But when you think of what he has done, the lies he tells his own people, the innocent people he is willing to kill, can you blame me? I have a friend who has died. My husband is still there. He calls himself president but he is the new Hitler.”
More at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7ff1bc7a-a7ad-11ec-a9dd-14c997a643ea?shareToken=4a819c50163515a6e17fdcbf14fe8ab1
I am in the Polish border town of Przemysl, and, to be frank, I am struggling to take it all in. It is a daunting privilege to witness the scenes of refugees huddling together in the cold, eyes haunted, bodies exhausted, fathers and husbands left behind to face pitiless bombing.
…With each story, a new pixel emerges in the panorama of Putin’s unprovoked war, a new insight into its iniquity. In a narrow corridor I speak to Louisa, a grandmother whose memories reach back to the Second World War, sitting beside her daughter, Andzela, who is in a wheelchair after a stroke three years ago, and two grandchildren. She is a retired chef and talks proudly of her speciality of rice, meat, grated carrots and onions. You can see her strength, her warmth, her wide brown eyes projecting into my heart. “We didn’t want to leave our home,” she says. “We wanted to defy Putin. But we will not surrender; our men will keep going till the end.”
And this mention of Putin hints at perhaps the most salient factor in this border town. Rich and poor, Polish and Ukrainian, relief workers and police officers, all are united in one visceral emotion. They hate the Russian leader. They do so with such feeling that many recoil when I mention his name. The hatred is not directed against the Russian people but against Putin himself: the man whose psychopathy led to this conflagration and the greatest European migration crisis since the Second World War.
“I am Russian by descent but I want to kill Putin,” says Anna, holding the hand of her daughter. “I feel guilty to use these words. But when you think of what he has done, the lies he tells his own people, the innocent people he is willing to kill, can you blame me? I have a friend who has died. My husband is still there. He calls himself president but he is the new Hitler.”
More at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7ff1bc7a-a7ad-11ec-a9dd-14c997a643ea?shareToken=4a819c50163515a6e17fdcbf14fe8ab1
3 replies
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