The Public’s Radio’s podcast on immigration, Mosaic, has a community essay series. This essay is by Dr. Michael Fine, a writer, community organizer, and family physician. He writes about going to the Ukrainian border to treat refugees and who helped him get there.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, I tried to get there to help Ukrainians in some way. There are just too many similarities between Putin and Hilter and Stalin for me to sit on my hands. I am the grandchild of Polish immigrants. We lost lots of our extended family in the Holocaust. Maybe I’m too old to fight, but I still know a little medicine, and I thought I might be useful.
The moment the invasion occured, I got on the phone to colleagues and every international aid organization that I knew, but nobody could tell me where to go or what to do. “There is too much chaos at the border,” I was told. “All the rental cars are rented, the trains are full, and the hotels are full. The hotels are needed for refugees.” The Ukrainians have their hands full fighting the Russians. The last thing they need is for an old English-speaking doctor wandering around Ukraine.
“Stay away.”
A month passed. I wrote letters and helped raise money, and then helped pull together a vigil at the statehouse in support of the Ukrainian people.
At the vigil, State Representative Barbara Fenton-Fung mentioned that the radio personality John DePetro was in Ukraine. John was somebody that I’d worked with, knew and liked. John had stepped up when I was trying to get people immunized against the flu when I was in government. He let me give him a flu shot on the air every year, something some senior elected officials refused to do. We had fun together on the air – I thought of John as a public health advocate, as someone with a fair amount of courage, and as someone I trusted.
So I emailed John and he connected me to Dr.Mohammed Zubair, the Chair of Humanity First (Germany) which had a medical clinic at the border between Poland and Ukraine. Dr Zubair arranged for me to come for two weeks at the end of April, and I spent those two weeks providing medical care, but I got there only because of John DePetro, and for that he has my undying thanks.
Here’s what I wrote to John and Representative Fenton-Fung: “Many thanks to both of you for ‘knowin a guy’. We make things happen in this quirky littler state. People like you do. Thanks for that.”
Whenever anyone asked how I got to Ukraine, I told the whole story, naming names and giving thanks. I actually thought it was a good story in itself. One person usually thought of as conservative and a little provocative helps out another person who is usually thought of as progressive and a little provocative, in support of the Ukrainian people and democracy itself.
Americans weren’t fighting with one another for once. We connected as people, and used our connection as people to do something, however small, for the greater good, exactly the story we want to tell about ourselves as Rhode Islanders, as Americans, and as one people.
So far all of the good, with the huge exception of the Russian invasion and the death and destruction this tyrant is causing.
But then, while I was in Poland I did a couple of interviews with reporters back home about my time at the border and in the Ukraine. I told each reporter the whole story. But the reporters left out the role played by Mr. DePetro. Because I was traveling, I didn’t see the reports until about a week after they came out. I was saddened to see John’s role left out. So I wrote him, thanking him again for his help and courage, just after I got home.
Even so, that wasn’t enough. John wrote me back to tell me how angry and disappointed he was to be left out. I double checked with one of the reporters: I had described the role John played, but that got removed when the story was edited, and it was too late to do a correction. I wrote back and told John that and asked to talk by phone so I could apologize myself. But after that, radio silence.
I don’t blame John: I’d be deeply hurt and deeply insulted if it were the other way around.
We can do lots together to stand up for democracy, which most of us care deeply about. We can build on our relationships.
But sometimes we fail.
I’m still sorry that John didn’t get the recognition he earned and deserved. I’m so grateful for his help. And I still hope we can all learn to see beyond our individual failures, so that we can focus on being one people and on democracy itself.
That was an essay by Dr. Michael Fine. To learn more about Mosaic’s community essays or submit your own essay, visit mosaicpodcast.org or email Community Producer Pearl Marvell at mosaiccommunity@thepublicsradio.org
