Every night this week, Daniel Kollek hasn't been at the ER at his usual hospital in Burlington, Ont. Instead, he's been working in wartorn Ukraine, driving between two different clinics near the Polish border for 12-hour overnight shifts.

A member of the non-profit Canadian Medical Assistance Teams, the 64-year-old doctor is one of more than a dozen medical volunteers treating exhausted Ukrainian refugees, arriving by the busload after long journeys spent without medicine or access to proper health care. When the refugees arrive, they are met by a pop-up clinic the Canadians built from wooden fruit crates and a mattress on the floor.

Kollek joins today to describe what he’s seen, the parallels between the current crisis and Holocaust, and why he took the time to say some prayers at the Belzec death camp, where 600,000 Polish Jews were murdered.

What we talked about:

Learn about Canadian Medical Assistance Teams at cmat.ca
Click here to find out more about the campaign to find Bernie Grempel

Credits

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

'It is hard not to be moved to tears': A Canadian doctor describes volunteering at a Ukrainian pop-up medical clinic