Bucks County couple travels to Poland to help Ukrainians flee war. Inside their harrowing trip home
One morning from her Richboro home, Nataliya Pristatsky decided that she’d had enough.
Watching helplessly from over 4,400 miles away the heartbreaking horrors her fellow Ukrainians suffered at the hands of Russian forces had become too much for the mother of five to bear.
Pristatsky, who works at the Bucks County Justice Center in Doylestown, needed to take action.
“I woke up and I told my husband, ‘We’ve got to go, I can't take this anymore,’” said Ukraine-born Pristatsky. She migrated with her partner, Pavlo Pristatsky, to the United States over 30 years ago.
Within the first month of Russia’s attack between Feb. 24 and March 24, an estimated 1,081 civilians were reportedly killed with 1,707 injured, according to statistics from the Office of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Pristatsky's brother, aunt, uncle and cousins live in Ukraine, and she shared that they were safe. "Thank God, at least for now," she added.
A strong compassion for their “freedom-loving and peaceful” people compelled the couple to pack up immediately and travel to Poland to assist, in any way they could, those fleeing the attack on Ukraine. As of May 3, the UN's Refugee Agency reported that Poland has welcomed nearly 3.1 million Ukrainian refugees.
“They're good people and they're paying a tremendous price for their freedom,” Pristatsky said emotionally.
“They're not flying in and bombing the army, the soldiers,” she said. “The kids are dying and it's just heartbreaking, the whole situation.”
They left their family at home in Richboro, leaving their eldest daughter, 19-year-old Nellie Pristatsky, to hold down the fort and care for her siblings, the youngest of whom is 6. Pavlo Pristatsky's parents also live nearby and checked on the children while their son and daughter-in-law departed for their humanitarian trip abroad.
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Nellie, who attends Arcadia University in Montgomery County, says she received countless comments, texts and messages lauding her parents’ bravery. The proud daughter also views her mother and father’s actions as heroic — but like any child would be, she was concerned for their safety.“In the back of my mind, the only thing I could really think about while they were gone is every single way that they could not come back,” said Nellie, who also has a 21-year-old brother.
“I kind of freaked myself out about it, and I just kept telling myself that they'll be fine, you know, ‘God's got them,’” she said.
'They're sleeping on the floor for days'
The Pristatskys set off to Poland on March 6 with large bags stuffed with supplies, mostly donated by their local church and the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center.Along with medical supplies, a bulk of the bags contained shoes for the volunteers on the ground creating a territorial defense force, Nataliya Pristatsky said, because Polish weather conditions were cold at the time of their trip.
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The main goal of their week-long journey was to help transport those fleeing Ukraine to neighboring countries including Germany, Slovakia or anywhere in Europe the refugees attempted to travel.
Their days were far from short, with Pristatsky sharing that one “exhausting” trip involved 14 hours of driving people to safety.
The primary issue they and other volunteers encountered, according to Pristatsky, was the sheer volume of volunteers trying to escape Ukraine and figuring out where to place them. Many refugees didn’t have particular destinations mapped out, she explained.
“If they gave us a destination, we could transport them, but most of them were desperately trying to find a place basically anywhere in Europe,” she said.Pristatsky recalled a visit to a refugee camp set up in Przemyśl, Poland, inside of an old sporting goods store.
It was filled with women and children, as men between the ages of 18 and 60 weren’t allowed to leave Ukraine during the period of martial law imposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“They're sleeping on the floor for days because they don't have a place to go,” Pristatsky said. The families had to use portable toilets outdoors in the cold weather, she shared.
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“I don't even know if they have running water because they were not expecting this; the Polish people are doing the best they can,” she said, adding that volunteers brought in food, medical supplies and other necessities for the women and children staying there.
'Our people are suffering'
The experience of fleeing the attacks seemed to have traumatized some of those the couple assisted. One girl heard an airplane whiz by overhead — and feared the worst.“It flew by where we were driving, and she kind of scooched, and I said, ‘it's OK, it's safe, you're safe. You don't have to hide anymore from the bombing,’” Pristatsky said.
While in Poland, the couple also sought out local organizations and coordinators who they could establish relationships with and further supply aid even after returning home to Bucks County.
“We (tried) to find organizations who need help and who are doing something, not just, you know, sending money anywhere,” she said.
The couple met with women who volunteered their time, day in and day out, to drive refugees and provide humanitarian aid to where it’s needed most.
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The women told Pristatsky their biggest need was protective gear for volunteers, who have had to make their own protection. The lives of those without it were at risk.
“(There were) young people, volunteers, who were delivering food and were killed by Russian soldiers, they didn't have weapons or anything,” Pristatsky said with a cracked voice and tears in her eyes.
“They were just bringing food,” she said. “They desperately need protective gear and tourniquets to stop the bleeding.”
Upon the Pristatskys’ return to the U.S., the couple intended to help their Ukrainian people in their native country wherever possible.
One such way involved sharing the story of their weeklong journey with local communities, including trip recap presentations to her Justice Center colleagues, as well as students and faculty at the Rowan School of Medicine in Stratford, New Jersey.
“I feel great that I did a little bit, I mean, I didn't sit and just worry, but I did something, so I feel great,” Pristatsky said of her trip.
She’s also helped to spread the word that her place of worship, the Evangelical Pentecostal Church of Philadelphia, has started a Go Fund Me page to financially support its own efforts to transport refugees fleeing the conflict. It’s so far raised nearly $11,900.
“When I first went to the refugee camp, I had never seen anything like it,” Pristatsky said. “Our people are suffering right now.”
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County couple recounts 'heartbreaking' visit to assist refugees in Poland amid Ukraine war
