Alen - Part 1
Apparently, I had just discovered “the biggest entertainment center in Krakow, Poland.” So said the sign on the building anyway.
What had once been a bustling mall and movie theater had sat deserted and hollow for seven months before finding its new, more meaningful purpose. In March of 2022, it began to bustle in a new way. This time, instead of the crowds coming to shop and be entertained, they came for survival. As I stood before the center just two months later, the revived building had become home to over 300 Ukrainian refugees.
When you step foot into this new aid and refugee center, you step into a windowless home that was never meant to be anyone’s living quarters. At times, the air is thick and difficult to breathe, and the ten total showers seem to never get a break. You don’t hear the 300 residents complaining, though. They are happy to be assigned a place to sleep in peace as strangers in a country that is not their own. Imperfect as it is, the abandoned building does its best, and so do its inhabitants.
Right outside the center, there is a World Central Kitchen that serves lunch and dinner not only to the residents of Galeria Plaza but to over 1000 additional Ukrainians every day of the week. Here you will find Alen, managing the kitchen, interacting with the people, or taking the trash out to the dumpster. Alen arrived from Spain in March, just one month after the war broke out, and he doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.
You see, Alen has a unique connection to the Ukrainian refugees. Like many of the children he works with, he lived through war and the occupation of his own city when he was a child. Born in Bosnia Herzegovina, he was 13 years old when the Serbians attacked his home country and city of Sarajevo.
Alen recalls his earlier years: “I had a really nice childhood in Bosnia. My parents were not rich and were normal social working people. They had jobs before the war. Sarajevo was one town with a spirit. They said everyone that came wanted to come back. Bosnian children liked to play football and sports. We had a nice childhood.”
Bosnians lived by the motto “bratstvo,” meaning brotherhood and unity. Alen’s family’s door was always open, as were the doors of his neighbors. He recalls eating dinner at 3-4 different homes each week because everyone in his neighborhood was considered family. In his hometown of Sarajevo, a Catholic church, an Orthodox church, and a Mosque were all within a 50-meter circle. The people were united no matter their religion or race.
At the beginning of 1992, everything changed. The Serbian army secretly encircled Sarajevo to prepare for war. “I remember the air was different for the two weeks leading up to the first bomb. I remember like yesterday the first air raid alarm,” Alen recalls.
People were in disbelief. Even his father did not think that the Serbians would ever attack them and refused to go to the basement with his family the first few times the sirens went off. Unfortunately, his disbelief was sadly disproven as the bombs started to drop. Bosnia was at war, and Alen’s father was soon drafted into the army.
Suddenly, there was no way in or out of the city. For three years, the residents of Sarajevo were utterly cut off from the outside world as 3500 projectiles pounded their beloved town on a daily basis. All around him, Alen saw friends dying.
“This war marked me for all my life,” stated Alen, “because when you see a kid or someone get hit by a projectile or bullet, you never forget it. You lose a lot of time; you lose a lot of your youth and your age. 11,541 children were killed in Sarajevo during the war. I remember one time we played in the playground with a ball. I say maybe I’m lucky because my mother called my brother and me to come eat lunch. Five minutes later, a grenade hit the playground, and the seven kids we were playing with were killed. All my friends, all the kids, boys and girls that were 11 or 12, were all killed.”
Eight months into the war, the Bosnians dug a 1000-kilometer tunnel to bring supplies into the city of Sarajevo. When the Serbians found out but didn’t know the location, they started even more shelling and tried to split the city in half to stop the Bosnians’ progress. While the tunnel brought some relief with needed supplies and food being passed into the besieged city, there was still not nearly enough to go around. Many times, Alen was lucky to have a piece of bread, and there were days when he survived on the grass outside his apartment that his mother used to prepare soup for their family.
It was not until three years into the war that humanitarian corridors opened up, and Alen’s family had the opportunity to escape to Slovenia. It was the first time they had had any hope since the war began.
When they got to Slovenia, they lived in a refugee center for a while. Alen recalls the situation: “They made one accommodation center for us. I started to find new friends and new relationships. We tried to forget everything, and the Slovenian people helped us. It was really strange at first, but it helped me to move on and forget. Not that we wanted to forget everything, but this new place helped us make new relationships and find new friends and helped us be able to sleep at night without fear of death.”
Alen says that although the Slovenians were not super welcoming at first, he made new friends with other Bosnians. “Gradually, you get integrated into the community. We started going to school, and then we moved to my aunt’s apartment. My father got work, and little by little, we started to build a new life in Slovenia. But at this point, this was hard for me to accept that we would not go back to Sarajevo. I was angry, and I couldn’t accept it. I was angry with my father and my mother, and I couldn’t understand why. Today I understand, but at the time, when I was 18, I did not understand.” Alen’s parents call Slovenia home to this day.
As a former refugee, Alen has a unique relationship with the Ukrainians. He has found a home with them in the newly bustling Galeria Plaza and understands them in ways that many people cannot. His experiences have made him the kind of person who cannot just sit around and do nothing in the face of the suffering of others.
Tune into the next post, where you can read more about how Alen is making a difference in the lives of Ukranian refugees in Krakow.
Amazing work by everyone! Thank you