Vyshyvanka

On the bookshelf in my study, in front of my Polish books sits a little cloth doll wearing the Vyshyvanka, the Ukrainian national dress. I received it as a present in 2019, from a group of young people from Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine that I met through Borussia. They were in Olsztyn as part of a study tour and were learning about the history of the region in workshops and excursions, and I talked to them about my own German-Polish history, about how the violence of the past still influences us all today but can yet help us to understand our fellow humans better.

In that time, a time before the pandemic and before a major war in Europe, yet in a time when the ugly face of extremist nationalism had shown its face everywhere in Europe and the war in Donbas, Luhansk and the Crimea was already raging for five years, their presence, their laughter and happiness seemed to me a glimmer of hope, a sign that we all might get along without hate and war. I think about them a lot these days, young poets, social workers, IT managers, students from Luzk, Sjewjerodonezk, Kyiv, Lviv. I think about them and the war - like so many wars started by small insecure men fearing death - and despite my hopelessness and despair I have decided to follow their example. I remain convinced that unity is always better than fragmentation; solidarity is always better than ostracism.

In that spirit and if you will allow me, I'd like to convey a message to you from my friend Olga Khadzhieva from Yekaterinburg.

"My great-grandfather freed Europe. He was killed in Croatia. I visited the mass grave there. I know exactly what gratitude to the soldiers-liberators looks like: fresh flowers in 70 years after the battle.

There will be no flowers in Ukraine. Because no one is being liberated there. There is a war. The lists of orphans in Donetsk and Lugansk are replenished with orphans from Kharkov, Odessa and Kyiv. Souls and families are broken. Pain, hate, and death are being multiplied right now. There is no reason or justification for this. Stop the war. Argue until you're hoarse in offices.”