Once a baby WWII refugee, Jackson woman now among those helping Ukraine

JACKSON - In a quiet retirement village, two older women were discussing the logistics of sending backpacks they had filled with supplies for Ukrainian refugees.

Vita Anton, the owner of the house, was born in Lithuania at the tail end of World War II. When she was a baby, she and her family found themselves making their way across Europe to a German displaced persons camp.

“My mother always talked about (how) we wound up in Austria before we got to Germany,” Anton recalled. “I could never understand when she said we lived in the Vienna train station for a week and it was very comfortable. ... She said we had benches to sleep on, we had the bathroom to bathe in. She said, ‘I could wash your diapers and hang them around (you) to dry.’”

Anton said, referring to the photos of families hunkered in subway stations in Ukraine, “Now, I understand the things she tells me.”

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Luzia Froes, who arrived in the U.S. from Portugal during the country’s dictatorship, said, “Two ends of Europe: one from the western end and one from the eastern end. And then we wound up working here together in Howell.”

The two friends who worked in Howell’s school system have been collecting donations for the past three months to fill up backpacks to send to children ages 4 to 12.

“We as retired teachers were concerned about the mental state of those children in those subway tunnels,” Anton said. “And we decided we wanted to do something for them. We decided to fill backpacks with reading activities, learning activities, games, things like that. To give the children something to stimulate their minds for a couple of minutes anyway.”

They’ve worked with Newbury Elementary School and Griebling Elementary School in Howell, St. Mary Academy in Stafford and the Hatikvah International Academy Charter School in East Brunswick.

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“We got a lot of involvement,” Anton said. “People sending stuff from as far as California. A school in North Carolina, the whole school was involved with writing notes for us.”

Somewhere from Anton reaching out to her network of friends and former co-workers, other came from total strangers, such as the Team Sun Kiss skydiving group who had seen a Facebook post asking for donations.

“This Hadassah (Knit and Nosh) group, the woman was a teacher with the Lithuanian school in Elizabeth. … When she mentioned it at work, everyone was interested,” Anton said. “The other one from the Elizabeth school, was at the Staten Island hospital and they contributed. It was just word of mouth all the way around.”

The Hadassah knitting group sent handmade socks, scarves and hats as well as two bags of stuffed animals with notes in Ukrainian like “You are special and beloved.”

Other groups have sent personalized messages with their donations as well. Some wrote “Stay strong” or “Hello from the USA.”

“There was one great one,” Anton said. “Big letters: PUTIN SUCKS! I think we all felt that way.”

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At Anton’s house, a group of about four or five volunteers show up near daily to sort through the supplies donated and pack the bags.

Patricia Kossoy said, “We do a food kit. We do a personal items kit with like toothbrushes. And then we do, it’s not really a school kit, but it’s got pencils, sharpeners, erasers, activity books, crayons. We have a stuffed animal. And then if we can, if we have it, we’ll put in some clothing or some socks.”

The clothing came courtesy of the skydiving team who put the volunteers in contact with a manufacturer who had a supply of sample clothing.

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And the hygiene products came from members of the First Presbyterian Church of Manasquan, volunteer Dottie Warren’s church.

Anton said her group reached 1,000 backpacks and they are now looking exclusively for monetary donations to cover the cost of airfare.

“We have been very lucky so far. Shipping companies have done it for nothing,” Anton said. “(But), we want to go by air so they can get there quicker.”

Anton said if the items go by ship, it could take eight weeks.

A previous round of donations have been flown by Maryna Vlasiuk, a Manalapan organizer who has been collecting supplies for civilians and soldiers in Ukraine. She started the Facebook group USA Stands with Ukraine.

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“We questioned how we could ever get the things to the kids in Ukraine. We don’t want it at the border where they were piling up and (Vlasiuk) got it in,” Anton said. “Every activity that’s gone on, she’s involved. Whether it’s here, it’s in Washington, D.C., she’s very very involved. … She’s into this 200% and she’s wonderful. It was the best connection we made.”

Anton said she hopes this phase of activism will be over soon and her house can cease to be a warehouse.

“Our next deal now is … to locate families to sponsor Ukrainians under this new law to come to the United States,” Anton said.

The program, Uniting for Ukraine, allows refugees fleeing Ukraine to stay temporarily in the U.S. for two years, but it requires a U.S. citizen to file documents indicating the refugee would have stable housing and finances.

Anton said when her family was applying to come to the U.S., they needed a sponsor.

“So I would like to help these people with some sponsorship because now the responsibility is not as much as it was back then.”

Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Jackson NJ woman, once a baby WWII refugee, now part of Ukraine help