When you know one of the fallen

A tribute to World Central Kitchen's Damian Soból

Damian Soból in Przemyśl, Poland, May 2022. Photo: Marta Magnoni.

This is Damian. He’s one of the seven World Central Kitchen workers killed in the Gaza Strip yesterday, their convoy hit by an Israeli air strike.

I didn’t know him well like my friends Marta, Marsha, and Laura (who last texted with him a few weeks ago), but well enough to know that he embodied loving kindness.

A fucking saint, is what I screamed in text to Laura last night when we confirmed our worst fears. A gem of gems.

Two years ago this month, I was in Poland, volunteering at WCK’s field kitchen in the town of Przemysl. It was early weeks of the war in Ukraine, when Ukrainians were fleeing en masse, packing trains across the border into Poland, first stop Przemysl.

Volunteers were assigned to kitchen duty or working one of the many welcome tents — at the border, at the train station, at a refugee center. And Damian was the guy doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff at these outposts. Logistics, supplies, volunteers. The stuff that either feels like invisible magic when done right or like noise pollution when not.

Over the course of the week I was in Poland, I kept seeing him in the WCK field kitchen, always on the move, loading and unloading vans that transported cambros of hot food, ready for distribution.

But the station is where we meet. I had signed up to do a night shift under the welcome tent just off Platform 4. To welcome weary travelers with a cup of kawa (coffee) or chai (tea), a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a friendly face.

He’s the guy to look for when you arrive, I was told. He shakes my hand. Looks me in the eye. Smiles. How am I doing, he asks. He thanks me for showing up. And then he’s off on an errand, back later. I’m in good hands, he lets me know; these volunteers will show you everything. He was right, of course.

I see him the next day. He asks me how it went last night, thanks me again. Let me know if you need anything.

Off he goes onto another task. A beam of light. And so young, maybe early thirties, a road full of promise, of dreams fulfilled.

My friend Marta, who arrived a few weeks later, worked solely at the train station. She told me that every day she would check in with Damian by text. He wanted to know what he could bring, what supplies needed refilling, as Marta and her cohort turned a their tent into a haven. A place to catch one’s breath.

“He was so encouraging to me,” Marta wrote last night after we shed tears on the phone. “He really got it. He told me how great I was helping others. When I was there [volunteering in Poland], I really felt like I belonged.”

Volunteering in response to a disaster is a universe unto its own. And this one was fluid, ever changing, uncertain, even a bit scary. We were just eight miles from a war zone.

Some of us, myself included, were there for a short stay. Others committed to weeks and months. But everyone was there because they wanted to be. They made the trek to Poland on their own dime. They wanted to be part of a force for good — that sense of belonging that Marta talked about, united against hatred.

A vibration that we felt from Damian.

May we carry it forward.

May we always choose love.