Every beat of my heart the past month has been in Solidarnosc z Ukraina. If you’ve read Granny in Gear before, you may have read Babcia on a Bike in Poland and the subsequent posts. Slavic blood flows through my veins; my father, uncles, and grandfathers would have been taking up arms to defend and preserve what was theirs and their neighbors’ without a moment’s hesitation. Some would call such action “foolish.” They would have called it “patriotic.”
Like many who are watching from near and far, I can’t help but compare what’s going on today with the countless invasions these Central European countries have endured over the centuries. Warsaw had to rebuild completely after WWII. Here’s hoping that in the not-so-distant future, Kviv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, and all the other besieged towns and cities will flourish and blossom again.
Faith is strong in Poland and I’m sure is playing a huge part in their opening their country to their besieged neighbors. There is such strong national identity in each country in the area, that it’s not surprising that Ukrainians want to return to their country as damaged as it is.
Music and dance are integral to life in Central European countries–not to be confused with “Eastern European countries” as we learned from our young Polish guides our first day in the country. The Poles, who have been enjoying the fruits of capitalism and modern life since 1989, want nothing to do with anything associated with Soviet life. In 2018 when I wrote An Apple a Day Keeps Putin Away, millions of bushels of apples were being left to rot on the ground due to an embargo imposed by Russia, Poland’s largest market for the crop.
But this isn’t a political post. It is a tribute to the spirit of the Poles and Ukrainians and all people who just want to wake up in the morning and live in peace. To plant their gardens and paint their houses. To dance at weddings and peddle their crafts at fairs. To pedal to the market or into the mountains just for the fun of it.
In 2018, our granddaughter, then a junior in a rural US high school, had the opportunity to go on an Eastern European history tour during her spring break.* I was skeptical at the time that a trip to Auschwitz was “appropriate” for teens whose greatest “hardship” so far has been that they’ve never had cable tv at home. But, today, as the older one texts her boyfriend stationed near the Polish border with the US Army, she understands why he is there and why my heart is breaking.
Yes, I left my heart in the country and I feel so helpless today as we watch Poland’s good neighbor suffer yet another invasion. This is my way of doing what I know how to do so that we never see the structure below used again.
A reconstructed checkpoint on the border of Germany and what was then Czechoslovakia. We biked through one Schengen country to another without being stopped anywhere. Let’s hope that doesn’t change.
*Unfortunately, our younger granddaughter was deprived of the same experience with the biannual Eastern European History trip in 2020 due to the pandemic, and now, it looks like this year’s students may be, too. I hope that somehow, young Americans, are learning world history and geography, and not from Twitter posts.
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