A man says he is ready to welcome Ukrainian refugees into his home to repay the British government - who gave sanctuary to his great-grandfather over a century ago. Charlie Rubin, 30, has been particularly moved by the crisis in Ukraine as the situation echoes what his relative went through in the early 1900s.
In 1910, Wilhelm Dank, Charlie's great grandfather on his dad's side, fled violent Russian pogroms and massacres in the Pale of Settlement. At the time this was a vast area of the Russian Empire, covering large parts of Eastern Europe and including most of Ukraine, where marginalised Jews were forced to live.
After seeking refuge in the UK in his early twenties, the British government greeted Wilhelm with open arms, and he settled in Manchester. He spoke no English when he first arrived, but attended night school to integrate himself into British society. And within ten years he became an established coat salesman, met Charlie's great grandma Jinney Zelkovich, and started a family.
