Rachel Ford

GSNC/NHPBS

The State We’re In program

Click the link to watch the full interview on NH PBS's The State We're In.

News updates, photos and videos coming out of Ukraine have been horrifying. Watching millions flee their homes during the fighting has been equally heartbreaking. One granite Stater studying in Europe is doing what she can to help the refugees pouring into Poland. Wolfeboro natives Rebecca Connelly and her father, Jamie, about Rebecca's work helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

This content has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full interview on NH PBS's The State We’re In.

Melanie Plenda: Rebecca, you're a student at St. Louis University in Madrid. Why did you decide to go to Poland with a friend to help Ukrainian refugees?

Rebecca Connelly: I had worked with refugees in the past in Rome. I always felt very touched by their stories from my work experience in the past, and I studied political science and international relations so we were following the conflict very closely and what was going on with it. It's very normal for students studying Europe to take a weekend and go to a different country, so we decided we would take our weekend and go to Poland and go to the border and just see what they needed help with. We didn't really have that much of a plan. We just had the desire to go help, and so that's what we did. We got here, we got a rental car. We drove to the border and we thought we would be handing out food or something like that, but we ended up seeing that the real need was shipping refugees away from the border and giving them housing further into Poland. So we started driving and we drove, I think, longer than the entire distance of the U.S. overall on our last trip - something like almost 4,000 miles. We meant to stay for three days and it turned into something bigger.

Melanie Plenda: Jamie, what was going through your mind when Rebecca, your 21-year-old daughter, told you about her plans? Were you surprised that she wanted to go there?

Jamie Connelly: Well, fear was the first thing that came to mind. I really wasn't surprised. Actually one of her high school teachers posted on Facebook and summed it up perfectly, saying she was proud to know Rebecca Connelly and not at all surprised she's getting involved; she's always had a thing to help out the less fortunate. Back in 2016, she went down to Haiti for a week to help out an orphanage. Late 2016 hurricane Matthew was ground zero with the same orphanage, so she did some fundraising. As she said, she did the refugee thing last year. During school, she got her certificate in English as a Second Language and she spent a month in Ghana teaching English in an orphanage. So I wasn't surprised, but I was very afraid for her physical wellbeing.

Melanie Plenda: Rebecca, you're in Poland today. What is it like there? What's the mood, and have things changed much from when you were there last?

Rebecca Connelly: It's a bit more organized. Before it was a lot more chaotic, it was a lot more new. There were a lot of popup refugee camps and now they're more hardened settlements, but we've seen an amazing response from the Polish government and the Polish military doing their jobs very well. The closer you get to the border, the more sympathy Polish people have for Ukrainians but in Krakow itself, there's always differing sentiments about anti-immigration policies. Poland happens to have a right wing government right now so sometimes when we talk to people in Krakow itself, they say we're overwhelmed and 25% of our population is refugees right now, we can barely take care of ourselves, we can't take all this in. Other times we meet volunteers that have come from all over the world, like we met some IT guys from Utah, some German bus drivers, some Spanish ex-soldiers, just anyone. It's mostly that tons of individuals have come of their own will to help and try to support the refugees, so it's definitely mixed sentiments for sure.

Melanie Plenda: Can you walk us through the process of meeting refugees and driving them to Krakow?

Rebecca Connelly: When we've gone through train stations and refugee registration centers and then refugee camps, we show up and we have a sign that says ‘Krakow’ and we hold it up. There's a ton of translators there at the border, which are extremely, extremely helpful. Everyone wears a vest that says they speak English, Spanish, Polish, Ukrainian, whatever, and they announce into the microphone, ‘Seven people to Krakow,’ and then the people flood up to you asking for a ride to Krakow. It became difficult because we could only fit four or five people and we didn't want to separate families. We had to consider, ‘who needs this the most? Who's going to sleep in this camp tonight and be a refugee, and who's going to come with us and get something like a hotel?’ All the refugees had the same sentiment of not wanting to be refugees. They don't want this at all. They want to be in Ukraine, but they have to be here because they have to take care of their children, so they would come up to us and then a translator would tell us, ‘they need to go to this train station in Krakow or this bus station, or they're going to try to meet at this address.’ The translator would really do the heavy lifting of telling us the logistics of what needs to happen. If they needed a hotel, we would call another volunteer that was based in Krakow and he would help us get a hotel for them. Then we would drive them two and a half hours to Krakow.

Melanie Plenda: You’re there for round two with more driving, so can you tell us more about that and what you have planned?

Rebecca Connelly: We just try to make as many trips a day as we can. It's five hours there and back, and about one hour in the refugee camps getting people, so ten to fifteen hours of driving a day, close to a thousand miles a day. Tomorrow we're going to pick up a photographer from a magazine in New Hampshire, the Parable, and we're taking him to the border. We're going to see what's needed. That's the thing, it's really difficult to plan these things because sometimes you show up and the border's closed so there's way less people, sometimes you show up and the border's just reopened after three days and there's a ton of people, sometimes they show up at 1:00 AM, and sometimes they show up at noon. Basically you just have to go and assess the situation and see what's happening.

That's the nature of the beast. That's the nature of war. One day it's different; one day there's a house there, the next day there's not. I wish I could give more concrete details but it's really about waking up and doing what you can, and assessing a situation as you go. Everyone wants to help and I'm so glad that that desire is there but at the same time, sometimes that's honestly what stresses me out the most. I feel responsible for doing all these people justice and I'm only 21 and I'm barely responsible for myself. I want to help, but it's difficult to feel that responsibility.

Melanie Plenda: You had mentioned learning a lot from your experiences in Poland on a human level, and you've also mentioned you're studying political science and international relations. I would imagine there are some other lessons from this conflict, as well. What are some of the things you've learned from your time in Poland?

Rebecca Connelly: Some of it was just reaffirming what I thought I already knew, and some of it was entirely new. For example, when presidents say things like Biden's comment about how Putin needs to not be in charge anymore, those things have real impacts on real people very quickly on the ground. Anything that politicians say that is controversial really affects people in real time quickly. We also saw a lot of NATO workers. We didn't see a lot of the UN and we didn't see a lot of the Red Cross, so I was surprised that we didn't see a lot of organizations. It's just complete chaos; there's no organization, it's brutal. That's what I learned on a political level.

On a human level, I had done charity work before, and it's always the same sentiment of immense gratitude. Some of the refugees were confused. They were saying, ‘Why are you helping us? We don't know you, we're just Ukraine. We're not that significant. We haven't been in the news before until now.’ We wanted to show we care, that they’re humans and they need help, so we're here and that's it. They were so grateful for a ride. They had just left their husbands; they had just left their brothers; they had just left their house; they had just left everything they knew, and they were so happy to just get a car ride. They would ask, ‘how much is it?’ We told them, oh no, it's free. They had no money and when we tried to give them money, they didn't want to accept it.

Another thing I learned politically was for example, in Germany, they have great privileges for refugees. They arrive and they get free housing, free transport, free healthcare, don't have to register for 90 days, just really good benefits. But the refugees didn't want to go to Germany or farther into Europe because they don't want to be a refugee. They want to stay near Poland so when the war's over, which they think is going to be soon, they can just go right back to their lives. We saw a lot of humans coping with denial, which is natural, but you look at these people and you're like, that could have been me if I was just born in a different place.

That's not me today and I can help today, so I better be helping today because it could be me tomorrow is something I also learned. Watching it from a distance versus meeting these people up close, they're still so full of hope. From a distance and at the beginning of the war, we all thought Ukraine was going to go down to Russia; Russia's a massive war machine. They have way more technology. After coming to the border, I don't think that's the case at all. I don't think Russia stands a chance because it seems to be that they will not give up. This is their house and their freedom and they will fight to the last person if that's what needs to be done. They told us there's this saying in Ukraine that hope dies last, and I have no doubt that they will persevere and endure.

Melanie Plenda: For those who might be moved to donate to a charity helping Ukrainian refugees, the New Hampshire Attorney General offers these tips. Check the registration status; charities operating in New Hampshire must register and submit reports to the Charitable Trust Unit. To determine whether a charity is properly registered and in good standing, search the registered charities list on the Charitable Trust Unit’s website. Next, check the experience of the charity. Charities that are formed overnight, or charities that shift their direction overnight to respond to a crisis, may not have the experience, context, or staff to address the challenge. Look for charities that have both a track record in the region and a good reputation. Consult watchdog organizations like Charity Watch or Charity Navigator that evaluate the track records of charities. Be cautious of online fundraising. Before making gifts using charity websites or online giving portals, review the Charitable Trust Unit’s online giving guide. Avoid making online gifts to individuals unless you know them. Do not be pressured to share personal financial information. Do not share your credit or debit card or bank account information over the phone. Send donations directly to the charity. A legitimate charity will not pressure you to make a donation immediately, so take the time to research the charity before committing to a gift. For more information, visit the website of the Charitable Trust Unit of the New Hampshire Attorney General's office at doj.nh.gov/charitable-trusts.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our race and equity project. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.