When Randolph resident Tom Remp heard that Russia had invaded Ukraine, he said he couldnโt sleep.
โI decided, well, youโre a photographer, and youโve been in difficult places before, and this is a story that needs to be told,โ he said. โA lot of the charities and NGOs working there donโt have their own photographers. I thought, if I went and donated my images, maybe it would make a real difference.โ
Remp โ a Scotland native who settled in Vermont eight years ago โ has some experience photographing conflict situations.
In 2013, he worked in El Salvador for a year, documenting a country still grappling with the effects of a civil war, struggling with violent crime and resulting mass migrations. That experience gave Remp confidence that he could, in some small way, help the refugee efforts in Poland.
When he told his fiancee, Cille Meberg, that he wanted to do something to help Ukraine โ before the war had even begun โ she didnโt think much of it. But then Putin invaded, and Remp booked a flight. It was real.
โI totally freaked out because I was like, wait a minute, weโre getting your backpack ready. Weโre getting your sleeping bag ready. Youโre actually doing this, oh my God. It was a bit terrifying,โ Meberg said.
Remp was actually doing it. He said goodbye to Meberg and their black lab Ivy, grabbed his camera, and headed to the airport.
After 10 hours of flights, Remp arrived in Warsaw. Once there, he quickly made his way toward the Ukrainian border.
โI was on an airport train, and a guy starts talking about how heโd flown from Panama to rescue his family who were trapped in Ukraine. He was a seaman, and he jumped ship to come over and get his family out,โ Remp said.
The stranger put Remp in touch with a friend in Lublin, Poland, who was coordinating aid to refugees out of a large city apartment generously provided by the owner.
โI jumped on a train to Lublin. And for a week, I lived on the floor of this house of refugees,โ he said.
While based in Lublin โ about 60 miles from Ukraine โ Remp said he made several trips to the border, to bus and train stations, and to a refugee camp.
โIn this type of situation, nothingโs necessarily planned, everything just sort of happens, and you deal with it as it comes up,โ he said.
Taking photos at the border, Remp FaceTimed Meberg back in Randolph. It was 2 a.m. on the border, but still, people continued to stream across, reuniting with family members whoโd also fled.
At every stop, Remp brought his camera. The people he met often encouraged him to keep shooting.
โโโPeople were very comfortable almost all the time with me taking pictures,โ he said. โItโs incredibly important for them to tell their story, and I was amazed by people who would literally be like, look at my child, take a photo of my child.โ
Walking into a refugee camp, Remp said he was overwhelmed with the immense scale of suffering and generosity.
โMy brain just could not compute how many people were there,โ he said, estimating 3,000. And that was only a sliver of the estimated more than 2 million Ukrainians who have fled the country.
Remp met medical professionals whoโd traveled to help from all over Europe.
He met Poles whoโd turned over their homes to refugees.
He met a woman who wanted to spend her 30th birthday making food at the border. A day became a week, and she amassed a troupe of 30 volunteers, all providing free food.
โYou get to know people so well under this type of pressure and fear and all the emotions,โ Remp said. โIโm a bit of a cynic. And seeing that many people give so much to so many, you know, was absolutely life-altering, quite literally. It was the most extraordinary experience, I think, in my life.โ
While in Poland, Remp worked with Happy Kids, a Polish nonprofit that helps run orphanages. According to Remp, Happy Kids was helping bring 800 Ukrainian orphans a day out of the country.
Rempโs photos show it all: the exhaustion and tears, the moments of surprising joy.
When it was time to head back to Vermont on March 10, after nine days abroad, Remp was a changed man.
โTo be honest, I got back on the plane to go home and I cried like a baby. I thought, โI need some time to work through this.โโ
In Randolph, Meberg is thankful to have Remp home safe.
โIโm just so happy heโs home,โ she said. โAnd so is my dog. She was giving me the cold shoulder for about a week.โ
But even though Remp has left the crisis zone, he hasnโt stopped thinking about Ukraine and how he can help.
โIt made me reevaluate a lot of what I was doing,โ he said. So much so, he quit his job as a communications manager at Dartmouth College. Heโs not sure what heโll do next, but for now, heโs sharing his photos and working on a YouTube channel where Ukrainians can tell their stories. And heโs thinking about how he can do more.
โHow can we in Vermont advocate for more refugees to live here and to be part of our community? Because, you know, for me, Iโm obviously an expat. And Vermont has been amazingly welcoming, and helped me feel that this is my home,โ he said.
Across the state, Vermonters with ties to Ukraine have worked to support their friends and family abroad, and others have rallied to support Ukraine however possible.
In Montpelier, the Legislature approved over $600,000 in aid to Ukraine, and Gov. Phil Scott has said Vermont is ready to accept Ukrainian refugees. That effort, though, has not yet begun.
