Jewish program helps children of Ukraine war

WARSAW, Poland — A 5-year-old girl’s drawing at a summer camp in Poland’s capital caught the eye of one of her counselors. Why did she use black and white and not red or pink to make a heart, Rabbi Ilana Baird asked the child.

The girl, sighing heavily, said it was black like the dog she left behind in Ukraine.

Baird, who lives in California, volunteered with several other Jews originally from Russia or other parts of the former Soviet Union to mentor Ukrainian refugee children at the camp in Warsaw. The program, which ended Friday, was designed to give some joy to youngsters traumatized by war, to help prepare them for a new school year in Poland and to give their mothers some time to themselves.

After performing puppet shows and reading stories to her group of 5- and 6-year-old campers, painting a lot of little faces and dispensing many big hugs, the rabbi saw another heart drawing. This one was pink. “Happiness,” the girl explained. Baird, 48, was happy to see cheerful colors and rainbows also emerging in the artwork of other children under her care at the Kef Be Kayitz camp, a Hebrew name that means Fun in the Summer.

For the volunteers, the decision to take time off from their usual jobs in the United States and fly to Poland to work with the Ukrainian children was driven by a desire to help those in need.

“Jewish people have suffered so much in the past. We suffered pogroms, we suffered the Holocaust, and we suffered antisemitism,” Baird said. “And we have a sense of obligation to help people who are suffering right now.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, people across Poland sprang into action to welcome and help refugees from the neighboring country. Poland has accepted more of the war’s refugees than any other nation.