Hosting Refugees » In God's Own Safe Haven

– In Kharkiv, I worked at a toy store – Natalia recalls warmly, a note of pride in her voice. – I used to bring joy to children. I don't work there anymore. My store is gone, destroyed by a missile strike. Everything was lost. Our entire neighbourhood is in ruins. Life has become a daily struggle. Kharkiv is a big city, but our neighbourhood – North Saltivka – is right next to the border, just a stone’s throw from Belgorod. And Belgorod is already Russia. That’s exactly where they set up their rocket launchers, aiming directly at our homes. If you drove around our neighbourhood now, you’d see almost every building undergoing reconstruction. Hardly any house survived untouched.

After five harrowing days spent sheltering in a basement under relentless shelling and bombardment, Natalia fled Kharkiv with her nine-year-old son and teenage daughter. Upon reaching the Polish border, exhausted and uncertain, she decided simply to board a bus “wherever it would take her.” That decision brought her to Poznań.

At the reception centre, volunteers quickly arranged for Natalia and her children to stay with a Polish family from Luboń. Tomasz, Magda, and their four children opened their home and hearts to the Ukrainian family. After two months, another safe haven was offered – this time by Father Marek, who invited Natalia and her children to stay in the parish house of a small community near Poznań.

– We ended up staying there for a whole year – Natalia recalls warmly. – Initially, it was supposed to be just temporary, but we felt so comfortable that we never looked elsewhere. We helped the priest organise various events. At the parish house, there were ladies responsible for preparations, and occasionally they’d need an extra hand with cleaning, cooking, or serving meals. The priest often welcomed visitors, including clergy from abroad, so gatherings were constantly being held there. People would pray, chat, drink tea or coffee, and afterwards, there was always tidying up to do. The priest was often exhausted – especially around Easter, when he fasted and held services until late at night – so he asked us to help. Together with the ladies from the parish, we swept floors, washed dishes, and cleaned rooms. It was a large house, with a meeting hall downstairs and two separate wings upstairs. We occupied one wing; two priests lived in the other. They’re not ordinary people, after all – they’ve chosen a difficult path. In our Orthodox tradition, a batiushka [an Orthodox priest] can marry and have children, but your religion forbids all of that. We respected their way of life. Besides, it was made clear to us that we wouldn’t be living directly alongside the priests. We had our own separate kitchen, fully equipped. The fridge was always full, even though when we first arrived, we’d already started receiving a 300 zloty allowance, so we could buy food ourselves.

Natalia was determined not to live off charity. From day one, she threw herself into job hunting, eager to regain her independence. Three times a week, she cleaned communal areas across eighteen three-storey apartment blocks on an estate in Luboń, and once a week, she tidied a beauty salon in a neighbouring village. This earned her about 2,800 zloty a month – enough to survive, but nowhere near enough to rent her own place. She kept searching for a better job, but her limited Polish proved a significant barrier. Most positions available to Ukrainian women involved shift work on factory production lines, something Natalia simply couldn’t manage, as it would have meant leaving her children alone at night.

Despite the formality and distance usually required by the priest’s cassock, sharing a home with Father Marek gradually brought the two families closer together.

– Father Marek introduced us to his family – his sister Anna, his brother, and his parents. He even took us to spend Christmas with them. At Christmas Eve’s dinner, it was the priest’s father who first said grace at the table. Then came the ritual of breaking wafers and exchanging good wishes – all completely new and fascinating to us. Later, we visited them again at Easter. Anna often dropped by the parish house with her husband and children, inviting me over for tea, and we spent many afternoons chatting. She also hosted a Ukrainian woman named Julia from Dnipro and her child at her home. Sometimes Anna brought Julia along to the parish house, and the three of us would sit talking – partly in Russian, partly in Ukrainian, partly in Polish – until we became firm friends. Those conversations, along with the friendships I formed with other women from the parish, were what finally helped me master the Polish language.

– Why did we decide to return? – Natalia pauses thoughtfully. – Father Marek had been reassigned to another parish, and we couldn’t continue taking advantage of his hospitality. We had to rent our own place, but for that we needed proper documents. We arrived in Poland without passports, which meant we had to go back to Ukraine to get new ones. Initially, we planned to return to Poland afterwards, but in the end, we stayed here. When we returned to Kharkiv, my elderly parents had already moved back from the countryside and needed care. My brother had been wounded at the front and was hospitalised – someone had to look after him. So, staying became inevitable. Luckily, I found a good job here, at the post office. I work at a computer in a safe spot – the office is set up in an air-raid shelter. Sometimes it’s quiet; other times, shelling suddenly begins. There are calm days and there are tense days, but we’ve learned to live with it. Our minds have adjusted, we've accepted this as our reality. Some of my friends who returned from Poland still can’t sleep; they jump awake at every explosion, cry easily, and feel constantly on edge. I used to be like that too, but it gets easier with time. You get used to the war – what other choice do we have?