Montreal rabbis travel to Polish-Ukrainian border to help amid 'heartbreak'

A group of Montreal rabbis has travelled to the Polish-Ukrainian border to deliver supplies – but also to see for themselves what more Canadians could be doing, as thousands of people back home try to find a way to help out.

"This is a an effort that shouldn't fall on the shoulders of one country alone," Rabbi Reuben Poupko told CTV News on Monday, the day he arrived in Poland, which has so far taken the vast majority of Ukrainian refugees after Russia's invasion.

Poupko is travelling in a group of three, with Rabbi Mark Fishman and Rabbi Adam Schier, all representing different synagogues in Montreal and its suburbs.

After landing in Warsaw, they drove five hours to the Ukrainian border, bringing food, clothing and money to hand out. They saw first-hand the harrowing scene there.

"The trauma on the face of kids… people who were told they had a chance to leave and had to gather everything they cherished in a knapsack in 20 minutes," Poupko said.

They got "on a bus ride that normally takes seven hours, now taking 28 hours. It's just a heartbreak," he said.

The trio plans to stay near the border to help for a few days, distributing goods and visiting refugee centres. They also carried some deliveries with them from Montreal, to a refugee centre in Warsaw.

"We met with some people whose families in Montreal had told us that their relatives had fled Ukraine for Poland," Poupko said. "We brought them what they had asked for, what they needed."

At the refugee centre, "it's women and children, in the main, whose husbands and fathers have stayed behind in Ukraine to fight to fight for that most elemental dignity, that we all understand… the fight for freedom."

More than 1.5 million people have already fled Ukraine in less than two weeks.

Other than the refugees' terrible dilemma, the other thing that's immediately clear is that a lot of great work is being done in Poland, Poupko said. The question is how Canadians can best assist.

"I have to say, the Polish people have risen to the challenge," Poupko said.

"There's a flood of volunteers in the centres, a flood of people who are opening their homes to complete strangers from a foreign land, who are bringing Ukrainians into their homes. It's really quite remarkable to see," he said.

The rabbis also met with Canada's ambassador to Poland, Leslie Scanlon, who impressed them. Poupko called her "a remarkable woman, very knowledgeable about the situation and a real dedicated public servant that all Canadians should be proud of."

But he and the two others still made their "pitch" to her that Canada should be stepping up its humanitarian aid—an argument they also plan to bring back to Canada, armed also with more on-the-ground details.

The shock of the situation still hasn't left him, nor should anyone be getting used to it, Poupko argued: "The idea that one man, one country, goes ahead and… attempts to completely destroy another country for no reason."

"It's astonishing that in the year 2022, you have the land war in Europe, an unprovoked land war in Europe, where the Russian army is not going after military targets—there's no pretense of that," he said.

"They're just simply indiscriminately bombing civilians in Odessa, now, Kyiv, Kharkov and Kherson."

And while it's physically distant, Canada, along with other countries, should consider whether it does bear some of the responsibility for what's happened, he said.

"Had Putin been confronted earlier, this might have been avoided—had his taking of Crimea and Donbass in 2008 and the 2014, had that been challenged by the West more profoundly and more aggressively, maybe this day would never have come," he said.

"When you don't challenge a violent tyrant early, this is the result."

BANK INUNDATED WITH DONATIONS AS MONTREALERS TRY TO HELP

Canadian officials say they are gearing up to make a big effort, with both federal and Quebec immigration ministers on Monday saying they hadn't yet set an upper limit on the number of Ukrainian refugees who will be accepted.

Many regular citizens are also clearly looking for outlets for their desire to pitch in. Many have already tried to line up a way to offer rooms in their houses, or their whole cottages, for refugees.

The head of a bank branch in Montreal's Little Ukraine, in Rosemont, said Monday that people have been inundating the tellers with questions about where and how to donate, and even bringing boxes of donations.

"Members, non-members, clients, non-clients," said Yourko Yulycky, the branch manager at the local Caisse Desjardins.

"They bring boxes of clothing, they bring boxes, they donate, they ask where they can donate from our neighbourhood, from our community."

People trying to get crucial goods to Ukrainians trapped in wartime are finding it very difficult, however, even if they have longstanding ties with the country and a good understanding of normal transport routes.

A Brossard couple with family in Ukraine has been trying to send shipments of bulletproof vests -- an item they learned was desperately needed. They found a supplier that doesn't require them to have a licence and have been trying to send the packages to their family's town.

But to get them to the town was impossible, so they decided to buy the vests, $700 each, for the land defence forces. To do even that they must have a cousin receive the parcels 800 kilometres away from the town, said the couple, Svitlana Iurchenko and Maksym Ishchenko.

"We paid for them, but there are a lot of other people that put posts on facebook that they're buying them too," said Ischchenko. "Regular people just like us who are doing what they can."

Together with buying a van to help get people out of Ukraine, since trains are full, the couple says they've spent about $25,000 out of pocket so far.

Iurchenko said that simplifying the visa process so that Ukrainians can come to Canada as refugees is also urgently needed.

As far as the rabbis' mission and the government is concerned, longer-term help will be desperately needed, agreed Gregory Bedik of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

"We're looking at villages bombarded so much that they don't exist anymore, and these people need to go somewhere," Bedik said.

"Really these are immediate needs for the survival of and support of Ukrainians, as well as long-term recovery."

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--With files from CTV's Vanessa Lee