In a Polish village the fear of war returns from Ukraine

PRZEWODOW, Poland — Set among vast fields of wheat, the tiny village of Przewodow and its 500 residents are accustomed to a quiet existence, even with a war on the Ukrainian border just miles away.

So when a missile exploded nearby Tuesday night, Iwona Margol said she heard a wave of panic

“There was a big sudden ‘kaboom,'” he said.

“It wasn’t clear whether we were supposed to pack up, run away or what to do in general.

Will we sleep through the night, will we live to see the morning after?

In the first hours after the missile slammed into a grain silo, killing two local residents and raising alarms about war spilling out of Ukraine, she was not alone in her fears.

Western officials have since concluded that the missile was most likely fired by a Ukrainian air defense system, not Russia.

This may have eased global fears, but levels of anxiety they remain higher in Przewodow and the neighboring region than at any time since the first weeks of the war.

Dozens of Polish soldiers and policemen have arrived at the village, which consists of a couple of colorful Soviet-style houses, a school, a grocery store and a farm, blocking access to all but the residents.

Drones and a helicopter buzzed overhead.

A four-day mourning period was announced and the local school closed its doors, offering advice to teachers, students and parents.

Margol, a cook in the school canteen, said she didn’t sleep Tuesday night because the explosion brought back tensions from the first days of the war.

And not just for her; students and teachers at the school where she works are “disheartened and worried,” she said.

When war broke out next door, residents rushed to supermarkets and gas stations to stock up on supplies, worried about a possible spread of violence.

The refugees Tens of thousands of Ukrainians crossing the border were a vivid reminder of the physical proximity of war.

“We live right near the border, so these feelings have intensified since February 2nd. 24,” said Marta Majewska, mayor of the nearby town of Hrubieszow.

But in recent months, with western Ukraine largely spared the fighting and refugee flows becoming a trickle, Majewska said local anxiety has eased.

“People have been more concerned about local problems, such as inflation and lack of coal,” he said, noting that Poland’s inflation rate has reached 18% recently, and even higher levels are expected.

But then the explosions came on Tuesday.

While there was no panic buying, customers at a grocery store in the nearby town of Wisznow were talking of nothing else, said Iwona Okopinska, owner of the store.

The victims were two men in their 60s, both agricultural workers.

One, a tractor driver, had just returned from the field with a load of corn when the missile struck at around 4pm local time on Tuesday.

“We are terrified by this situation,” Grzegorz Drewnik, governor of the surrounding Dolhobyczow region, told local media.

“I knew the people who were killed. They were very honest members of our community.”

Przewodow is located in one of the areas Poorer of Poland, with small villages scattered among fields and woods, many of them, like Przewodow, former collective farms under communism.

Like other rural areas of Poland, it suffered high levels of unemployment after the collapse of the communist regime in 1989, with a mass emigration to Polish cities and, after Poland joined the European Union in 2004, to Western Europe.

In eastern Poland, the war in Ukraine also brings up painful memories of World War II, when it was first occupied by the Nazis, then the Soviets, and then again by the Nazis.

Before 1939, the city’s population was evenly divided between Poles and Ukrainians, including a significant Jewish population.

The wider Lubelskie region, which includes Przewodow, is now home to more than 60,000 Ukrainian refugees, and shockwaves from the blast ripped through their new acquisitions and fragile sense of security.

Vitalik, 15, is a mentally handicapped orphan who was evacuated along with 40 other people from an orphanage for children with special needs in Zaturce, western Ukraine, in the first weeks of the war.

When he learned of the explosions, he ran to his keepers and asked if they should run, ready to pack up his teddy bear.

“All of their traumatic experiences came back last night,” said Piotr Zygarski, director of the Honor In Helping Children foundation, which evacuated the children to a hotel in Kaweczynek, about 40 miles from Przewodow.

When the children arrived, they ran for cover whenever they heard US military planes, which are stationed in a nearby city, Zygarski said.

But after months of psychological treatment, they began to behave like children of their age: playing, singing, dancing and having fun. Everything changed last night.

“It fell on us from the sky,” he said of the news of the explosion.

“It was a shock, for us and for the children. We kept telling them that they could feel safe in Poland. And this sense of security has been shattered.”

Margol, the cook in the school kitchen, said she was now deeply concerned that war might come to Poland.

When Volodymyr, a city in western Ukraine 30 miles across the border, was bombed, she was volunteering at the border crossing.

“I heard it and saw the reaction of these Ukrainians,” he said.

“You can’t forget these faces, it’s hard to put into words. Honestly, I’m worried this could come from us, God forbid.”

Ada Petrichzko and Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting from Warsaw.

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