Young Polish man arrives at border, returns home with Ukrainian family

KRAKOW, Poland -

It started with a cab ride. As it usually goes with journalists – professional curiosity-chasers – Lisa LaFlamme and I started asking our driver a few questions.

What do you think about what’s happening in Ukraine?

After a few choice words about Vladimir Putin, Thomasz, our Polish cabbie, said he knew a guy, who knew the son of another guy, who just rescued a Ukrainian mother and her five children. He drove three hours to the border, picked them up, drove three hours back – and now, they were all staying at the house.

“The mother and all the children?” Lisa asked, “How does he know them?”

“He met them at the border,” Thomasz replied with a shrug.

He has a name. Bartek. We connected, first by text, then by phone. Even with Bartek telling the story to us directly, it seemed too incredible to be true. His original good deed was dropping off donations. His contribution to help Ukrainians who left everything behind in the scramble to escape the Russian bombs.

Then he saw the need and he knew, he says, this wasn’t about a drop-off. He was there for a critical pick-up.

After calling his father and grandmother for permission, he wrote some words on a cardboard to hold up as a sign, indicating he had shelter for three people in Krakow. Just three.

After calling his father and grandmother for permission, Bartek wrote some words on a cardboard to hold up as a sign, indicating he had shelter for three people in Krakow. Just three. (Rosa Hwang/CTV National News)

He ended up with six. So this small Polish household suddenly ballooned to nine people, mostly Ukrainian.

Bartek, his father and grandmother are providing sanctuary to a Ukrainian mother and her five children, ranging in age from 17 to six months. When Lisa and I, along with photojournalist Stephane Brisson, arrived at the house to meet the family, it answered every question we had about why this young Polish man decided to spend his Saturday night saving not just a life, but six lives.

Just look at their faces.

Bartek, his father and grandmother are providing sanctuary to a Ukrainian mother and her five children, ranging in age from 17 to six months. (Rosa Hwang/CTV National News)

A week ago, the five children who now live in Bartek’s house, lived in their own home with their mother and father, in a town where they had friends and family. Tonight, they are in an unfamiliar house, in an unfamiliar country – and while they have their mother, their father stayed behind to fight in a war they don’t quite understand.

They were spared from death, yet scarred by the trauma of displacement.

But they found a safe place to land because a young man decided it was the right thing to do.

Photos of the children were taken with permission from their mother.