Ukrainian Crisis Draws NJ Mayor To Poland To Help

POINT PLEASANT BEACH, NJ — Like so many, Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra has found himself watching in anger, horror and frustration as the Russian war on Ukraine has unfolded over the last week.

For Kanitra, it's a bit more personal: He has family ties to the region. He also does human rights work in the region.

"Half of my family is Polish and Slovakian," Kanitra said in a post on his mayoral Facebook page Tuesday evening. "And I feel compelled to do something watching this insane horror unfold."

It's not just the personal connections that motivate him to want to help in the face of what he called a human tragedy from the "unjust and unprovoked aggression."

"For years young Polish and Ukrainian people have come over to take summer jobs on the boardwalk and have forged a lot of lasting relationships here," Kanitra said. "I don't know how much of a difference one person can make, but I'm at least going to try."

Kanitra boarded a plane Wednesday to fly to Poland, where he is renting a passenger van and plans to drive as close to the border with Ukraine as he can get, so he can assist refugees streaming into Poland to escape the attacks on Ukrainian cities.

"My great-grandparents on my father's side came over from Poland and Slovakia," Kanitra said Wednesday morning. "Not only that, I've been to pretty much every country involved in the conflict. I've traveled to some of the places my ancestors came from."

People from his ancestral homeland have come here, too; a delegation from Dunajov, Slovakia — his great-grandparents' hometown — came to Point Pleasant Beach to support Kanitra while he was running for office.

He said the rising number of civilian casualties and the growing refugee crisis pushed him to help.

"I found myself in the middle of the night going back and forth, making every excuse why I couldn't go help," he said. "I was looking at my schedule and saying 'I have all these meetings.' Finally I just decided I'd get it done."

In the week since Russian troops first invaded, more than 677,000 people have fled Ukraine, according to Flilppo Grandi, United Nations commissioner for refugees. More than 280,000 Ukrainians have gone to Poland, Vox reported, with the vast majority women and children; Ukraine is requiring men ages 18 to 60 to stay behind to fight.

European governments and humanitarian organizations have been planning for their arrival for weeks, but the number of refugees has surpassed those expectations. The UN has projected that 4 million Ukrainian refugees could arrive in neighboring countries just in the coming weeks, Vox reported.

Kanitra owns a government relations lobbying firm "that tries to give groups that couldn't afford it a voice in goverment," and that gives him the flexibility to make the trip, he said.

Much of his work is focused on human rights, an outgrowth of work he did as an intern for the U.S. Helsinki Commission, a federal agency that promotes human rights in Eastern Europe.

Among his current clients is a parent trying to regain custody of a child taken to Ukraine, he said. The child is in the Ukrainian city Mariupol, which is surrounded right now.

"That's further created a tie," he said. "We looked at the danger that child is in and have tried to intercede on their behalf as well."

Kanitra is flying into Krakow in Poland and will drive three hours to Medyka, which is centrally located, with multiple border checkpoints within an hour's drive. One of his best friend is joining him on the trip.

Once they arrive, they plan to assess the situation to see what's most needed.

"I want to try to find the needs that are not being met," Kanitra said, "whether it's juice boxes for kids or blankets or train and bus fare."

"After we assess on our first day then we'll start making some runs and getting what really matters," he said.

Kanitra acknowledged the desire that so many have to want to help the refugees as well as those still in the country facing the Russian attacks.

"I'm trying to bootstrap this mostly ourselves," Kanitra said. "If we determine there's a specific need, we'll post an update and go from there."