what would you take Imagine the moment – to hear the sound of sirens, the bang of guns, the crash of bombs – when you know you have to run away from your favorite home to any safe place.
You grab a bag or two – you can’t carry much – your children are crying, your heart is cold with terror. Do you take your little one’s favorite teddy bear?
Will you put this precious picture in the frame of your late parents in your backpack while holding back tears for the sake of the children?
Ukrainian civilians who came to Poland because of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine are seen at the station in the city of Medica
Armed military police talk to gendarmes as they watch refugees flee the conflict in neighboring Ukraine on the Romanian-Ukrainian border in Siret, Romania
Of course, someone has to carry your cat, your dog, because they are also a family.
The nightmare of the Ukrainian people is very real and in this, the 21st century, we have a place in the ring of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Through the internet and the tireless efforts of news crews, reporters and photographers, we are witnessing the grief and the interior of a European nation attacked by a ruthless tyrant.
Seeing the dramatic images and reading the details of how the horrific events unfold, what else can we do but feel a powerless mixture of horror, sadness and rage on their behalf?
But, of course, we can do more. In moments like this, it is not enough to shed a tear at the heartbreaking picture of a small child screaming in terror in front of a crowded train window.
Such powerful images have the power to cut through the applause of a dictator and the rhetoric of international leaders and the mind-boggling details of international finance, sanctions, and so on.
Cars lined up on the way to the Shekhini border checkpoint as people flee to Poland after the Russian invasion
They must be allowed to speak to our hearts.
Now is the time to allow these people to like us as fellow men, women and children as we reach out with the practical help they so desperately need.
Yes, of course, it is important that people in Western countries take to the streets to protest the war.
But the horrible images of lives turned upside down call to us for concrete support in terms of money.
Perhaps we are witnessing the worst refugee crisis on the European continent since the fall of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
That is why the Daily Mail joins our sister newspaper Mail on Sunday to call for donations to help the innocent people of Ukraine.
Refugees fleeing the conflict in neighboring Ukraine walk in a refugee camp set up on a football field in Siret, Romania
Oh, it’s easy to turn away from events in a foreign land. It’s too easy to say, “It’s not my problem.”
But when you see pictures on the streets of Kiev – noticing the type of cafe you enter on the way to work, a beauty salon where women like you do their nails, a large supermarket for the weekly family store, etc. on – look at a bustling European city like ours, where people like us fall in love, grieve, study, worry about grandma and want the best for their children, as we do.
When I read about the hundreds of thousands of displaced women and children separated by husbands and fathers and stumbling long, cold, icy miles to the Polish and Romanian borders of Ukraine, I couldn’t help but think of my own family.
What if my own daughter had to flee in terror with her two children, leaving her husband a soldier, my beloved son-in-law, to fight?
Making that emotional leap and imagining your own family torn apart doesn’t mean making their suffering all for you; on the contrary, it is to invoke one of the most precious and sublime aspects of humanity.
“Empathy” means understanding and feeling another person’s situation as if it were yours. This goes far beyond simple “sympathy” – or pity for someone.
No, life empathy is the enormous imaginary energy that catapults you into their hearts.
What if the bombs fall on Manchester? What if your 19-year-old son was lying on his stomach with a weapon ready to defend your city?
What if your sister gives birth to her baby in a subway station full of terrified people?
Would you join your friends and neighbors in a panicked improvised weapons production line to keep the invaders away from your street?
Maybe your hometown is twinned with another city elsewhere. You may remember that the post-World War II twinning movement was seen as a way to bring European people closer together and to promote cross-border projects and peace.
In other words, the universal dream of humanity, which is usually destroyed by politicking and power.
But we must cling to the dream and never let it go. That is why I am pleased to write that Kiev is still twinned with Edinburgh, Donetsk with Sheffield, Luhansk with Cardiff, Lviv with Rochdale, Odessa with Liverpool… and I am sure there should be more.
The idea of ”twinning” may be symbolic, but it matters. To feel the plight of our brothers and sisters in Ukraine as if it were our own means to make a powerful statement about all that is best for the human spirit.
We are moved by the agony of those who have left their homes in fear because we know how we would feel in the same circumstances.
And in that case, won’t we hope and pray with all our hearts and souls, strangers somewhere to open their hearts and help us?
Nearly 15 years of writing on my Saturday Mail Advice column have brought me very close to my readers – and that’s why I know what good hearts you have.
The generous people of Poland and Romania have already shown what it means to offer immediate practical help to Ukraine’s needy neighbors as they desperately cross borders.
We are not so close in the UK, but we can still dig deep, knowing that the crisis can only get worse.
Clothing, food, medical supplies and shelter are already in short supply and reputable charities are making concrete plans to help the affected families in the best possible way.
But let’s be realistic: it will require a lot of money. My money and yours. Please help us to help them.