Money is needed most to help Ukrainians
THE Ukraine crisis has brought back vivid memories to me of the Hungarian uprising of 1956 when Hungarians tried and failed to end the hated Soviet occupation.
My Anglo-Hungarian parents were very involved in co-ordinating the relief effort here, as was my aunt who organised a refugee camp in Austria.
An estimated 30,000 Hungarian resistance fighters were killed in the uprising, the Soviet tanks dragging the mangled bodies of the protestors round the streets of Budapest as a warning to others.
By contrast to the shamefully slow and niggardly response of our current government to the horrific and even more brutal conflict in Ukraine, back then Britain opened its arms to the refugees who fled across the border to Austria, flying them to Britain from Austria on planes that carried a recorded message – ‘Welcome to Britain, you are now in a free country.’
Then, as now, the response of the British public was incredibly generous; my older sister and I sold ribbon badges on the street in the colours of the Hungarian flag, and everyone stopped to buy one. Tonnes and tonnes of goods of all kinds were collected by small groups across the country and transported ad hoc across Europe to the refugee camps, just as they are now.
However, well-meaning as the donations were, they were often not what was needed most.
Lorry loads of those generous donations were never used, when other desperately needed things were in short supply, and with the best of intentions those delivering them in their vans and lorries frequently hindered rather than helped the relief effort.
Can I urge your readers to donate cash, not goods, to the Ukrainian relief effort? The Disasters Emergency Committee and other organisations on the ground will be better placed to identify what is most needed and organise the distribution.
I’m not denigrating the amazing informal relief efforts here; faced with the heartrending sights of exhausted Ukrainian women and children desperate to escape a barbaric war, we all want to find ways to respond, but let’s make sure our help is targeted wherever and however it can best be used. Tessa Byars
by email