Are people more inclined to help strangers when they’ve experienced similar hardships? People who have experienced displacement could be tremendous allies to the newly displaced, but they are relatively understudied. This study explores how people who have experienced wartime displacement respond to refugees fleeing new violence. I prime Serbs who experienced wartime displacement with either (1) their experience of displacement or (2) their ethnic identity. I then measure their altruism toward Syrian refugees traveling the Balkan route. Compared to participants who were reminded of their ethnic identity, participants who were reminded of their displacement were no more generous toward displaced Syrians. In fact, participants who experienced displacement, as well as wartime violence, were more generous toward the refugees when they were reminded of their ethnic identity. These results suggest that shared hardship alone may not necessarily enhance refugee inclusion. The results further suggest that interventions may benefit from calling out the differences between hosts and refugees—in this case, on the dimension of ethnicity. These findings caution humanitarians to construct their interventions with care.