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Summer vacation in a danger zone By Morgan Rothborne Aug 24, 2022 01:00 AM A A Ashland teacher Paul Huard gets his “hands dirty” over summer vacation helping Ukrainian refugees escape to Poland Paul Huard, an Ashland history teacher, holds up a vest he wore this summer in Poland that identified him as a relief worker helping Ukrainian refugees. [Morgan Rothborne/Mail Tribune] Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a three-part series about local people who recently traveled to Eastern Europe to help Ukrainians in need. Paul Huard, a history teacher at Ashland High School, swapped his summer vacation from walking another leg of the Camino de Santiago in Spain to helping Ukrainian refugees escape into Poland. His flight to Spain was already booked when the war broke out, he said. Using his letter of acceptance as a volunteer with Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, he was able to convince airlines to shift his flights around, and he was in Poland by July. His motivation for volunteering was his faith. “Showing God’s love isn’t some ethereal light that turns on in the darkness; it’s people getting their hands dirty helping out others,” he said. Huard has been many things. A history teacher, a journalist at home and abroad, freelance and full-time. He said his experience as a war-time volunteer altered his priorities. He’s won awards for his writing and his teaching, but pursuing success can’t be what life is about, he said. The war still captures his attention. He wants to go back. “Everyone has a cause; I guess this is mine,” he said. He spent 12 weeks working at a train station in the Polish city of Przemyśl (pronounced shemish), he said. Multiple charities have flocked there to catch refugees being funneled to that spot by interconnecting trains, Huard explained. Men of martial age are not allowed to leave Ukraine, so the Ukrainian refugees he saw were almost all women and children, he said. The old women and newly single mothers arriving at the station with children are shouldering responsibilities unfamiliar to them. The women arrive at Przemyśl struggling with suitcases stuffed full of their possessions. He helped one family get a new suitcase when theirs gave up the ghost in the middle of the train tracks, and the explosion spread the family’s belongings far and wide. Many of the women need tickets for another leg of their journey. The ticket station at Przemyśl cannot be reached except by traveling first down one staircase to an underground pedestrian tunnel, then up another staircase, Huard explained. He and his fellow volunteers met the women passing through the Polish border guards and offered help with their bags. He equated the work to helping a friend move out of an apartment for seven hours a day, eight days a week. “I’m 60 years old; I’m not the strapping young buck I used to be. I could only work for a few hours,” he said. “The 20- and 30-something volunteers worked for eight to 10 hours a day.” Once the people and their suitcases made it through the staircases, Huard and other volunteers would help them get tickets and connect them with larger charities to continue their escape or meet their other needs. One charity offered borscht and beef and cabbage to whoever was hungry. Eventually Nazarene Compassionate Ministries realized that while Huard’s body was not as strong, he had other skills, and he was paired with a Ukrainian volunteer, Iryna, to help refugees who fell through the cracks to connect with the larger charities. Huard said in this work he relied on advice from friends, one a combat medic, another a veteran of humanitarian work. “You can’t help everybody, but you can help the person in front of you. You will experience emotional downs, but you will also experience a certain joy. If you need to take a break, walk away; take care of yourself.” Huard remembered one case where he couldn’t walk away. Lada was a 12-year-old girl traveling with her family. They ran out of money and needed help getting to Warsaw, where they would be able to get her into a hospital, Huard said. Lada was badly injured in a Russian attack, with severe burns covering 40% of her body. Blood and fluid still trickled from her ears, he said. He spent time talking with her about school and her life back home. Hoping to be a cheerful distraction, he worked to keep a smile on his face. “Why that child wasn’t in agony, I don’t know; it was the grace of God she was able to be upright,” he said. He and his fellow volunteers arranged and paid for a train ticket, hotel room and cab fare to get Lada to the hospital. It was difficult, he said, watching the women endure compiling indignities. Phones are lost; luggage disintegrates; they run out of money; they don’t know whether where they’re going is safe, he said. Przemyśl has frequent rain and thunderstorms in July. He said sometimes children would lie down in the rain to sleep on the ground outside the train station, too exhausted to go any farther. He was emphatic that all Americans should help the Ukrainians, but he cautioned how they help. Some people are taking advantage of the situation in Eastern Europe, he said, advising donations to a reputable faith-based organization or a trusted charity already working in Ukraine or one of its neighbors. Those who want to use their own hands and feet should expect to work for it, he explained. “It was like applying for a job. I had to go through a background check; they wanted to see a resume; they wanted to know my language skills; I had to interview twice,” Huard said of the monthslong process to be accepted for an organization tied to his own church. The process is selective, he said, because these organizations are working to keep foxes out of the henhouse. “There are sex traffickers preying on women and children refugees; there have been since the beginning. I have many wrist bands and a vest, so they (the refugees) can see who the good guys are,” Huard said, holding up the identifying items the volunteers wore. He has kept many mementos, but his prize possessions, he said, are two hard candies given to him by an old woman. “I was helping her get her luggage across the tracks, and she reached in her purse, and I said in Russian, ‘no money, no money.’” The woman smiled, shook her head and handed him the candies. Huard found in those two candies a near spiritual experience. He said he was completely fulfilled; he knew he had helped someone; he knew in that moment he was in the right place at the right time. “I will never eat these,” he said. Reach Mail Tribune reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected] or 541-776-4487. Follow her on Twitter @MRothborne.