People fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wait for a transport near a refugee shelter in Beregsurany, Hungary, March 14, 2022. (Bernadett Szabo/Reuters)
Seeing the best of human nature at a refugee center on the Hungary–Ukraine border.
With the help of a Russian-speaking friend, I learned things that I just couldn’t find on other channels. Reports that Russian forces were taking heavy losses were false, designed to “mislead inexperienced viewers.” The threat to civilians in Ukraine comes not from Russian forces, but from “Ukrainian nationalists” and their accompanying “wolf commandos,” who are American mercenaries fighting for the Kyiv regime.
All the presenters make constant reference to the “historical parallels” between Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and the Soviet Union’s struggle against Nazi Germany. A surreal documentary highlights the long-standing “fraternal” ties between Ukraine and Russia. Archive footage of tractors harvesting Ukrainian wheat are shown without any sense of the bitter irony — it was Joseph Stalin’s forced famine that led to the deaths of some 4 million Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933.
Then I sit bolt upright as the documentary depicts the liberation of Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city, from the Nazis in September 1943. German signs are smashed in the footage as happy civilians then dance with grinning Soviet soldiers. But no footage is shown of Mariupol today.
The reason is that conditions there are akin to a medieval siege. Mariupol has been besieged for three weeks by a Russian army that is bombing and starving its 300,000 people and preventing them from leaving. On Sunday, Ukraine rejected a Russian deadline demanding that Mariupol’s defenders lay down their arms in exchange for safe passage out of the city.
It is dark humor of the blackest kind for Russian TV to show scenes of the “glorious” liberation of Mariupol in 1943 while Russian troops today have killed an estimated 3,000 civilians there and damaged 90 percent of its buildings. Are the Russian TV producers that sick?
Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats, who hosted an independent radio talk show in Russia until it was closed down this month, says state TV executives slavishly try to please their masters without even being told to do so.
“It is Orwell 1984,” she told the BBC. “In this world . . . lies are truth, and war is peace.”
In an op-ed in USA Today, Albats wrote: “My dad fought the Nazis to defend his motherland, Russia, then part of the USSR. Thanks to God, my father is long gone to a better world, and he did not get to see that now Russia is attacking Ukraine and making ruins out of (Ukraine) as Nazis did eight decades ago during World War II.”
I finally tear myself away from the Russian TV broadcast. It is time for the three-hour drive to the Ukrainian border, where I had scheduled interviews with officials of the relief agencies aiding some of the 3 million Ukrainians who have fled their country to neighboring Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova.
We arrive at the Hungarian Maltese Charity Service at the small border town of Beregsurany. Minibuses pull up outside the local community center where refugees are processed. Some spend only a couple of hours there, as they have family, friends, or other relief agencies picking them up. Others are sent on trains and buses to Budapest or other Hungarian cities to be cared for. Still others spend up to three nights in the gym until they move on to countries farther west.
Refugees arrive at Beregsurany, Hungary. (Photo courtesy John Fund)
Of course, most of the refugees are Ukrainian, but there has been a contingent of students from India trying to get home. A man from Ghana evangelizes a small group of local people who seem fascinated with his deep voice, even if they can catch only a smattering of the translation of his speech. One who does understand him is Steve Breyer, an American from Houston, Texas, who jumped on a plane with his 17-year-old son, Nathan, to see if he could somehow help out. When I express surprise at what seems like an impulsive move, he introduces me to Nathan. It turns out that Nathan was adopted by the Breyer family from Ukraine at age one. At the news of the invasion, he insisted he wanted to return to his homeland for the first time, connect with his roots, and help kids who may not have had the lucky break he did.
Next to the reception area where Nathan and his father and I talked is another room where a flood of donated food and clothes are sorted out. Everything is well-organized. There is even a row of stuffed animals for children to choose from.
George Pataki, the former governor of New York whose family is originally from Hungary, had visited Beregsurany only a couple of days before I did. He tells me by email that he was similarly impressed: “Hungarian charities are doing a terrific job with the support of the Hungarian government, but I was shocked to see no aid at all from the US or global charities. The refugee crisis will only get worse. There is this talk of billions being sent to help Ukraine, but nothing is getting to the refugees except what we and local governments get to these specific charities.”
John Fund (left) with Hungarian charity officials in Beregsurany. At right is Attila Vandoz. (Photo courtesy John Fund)
Attila Vandoz, the staff director at the Beregsurany center, agrees. He tells me that there used to be 3,000 refugees a day being processed. It is now down to 300 a day, but that is deceptive. “There is a logjam on the Ukrainian side because it’s now harder for people to get to the border from the war zones,” he says. Istvan Herka, the mayor of Beregsurany, says he is proud that his entire village of 600 people is prepared to help with the refugee effort over the long haul.
Donations for children at Beregsurany, Hungary. (Photo courtesy John Fund)
Beregsurany is all about the best of human nature — helping people in sudden need. But the war always looms in the background of every conversation. Maria, a former nun from the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson, tells me, “I am a woman of God, but until the Russian soldiers are led away from Putin’s madness, we will have to take care of them in actions they understand.” In other words, they will have to be killed or captured.
