Poland’s generous welcome of Ukrainian refugees shows signs of strain

 

Poland’s generous welcome of Ukrainian refugees shows signs of strain

 

Thousands of Poles have been moved to help their neighbors, but now they’re calling on the government to step up.

 

BY ZOSIA WANAT

March 11, 2022 4:02 am

https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-dunkirk-moment-refugee-ukraine-war/

 

In the two weeks since Russia attacked Ukraine, more than 1.4 million Ukrainians have crossed into Poland — the largest influx of refugees the country has seen since World War II.

 

But there are no refugee camps. Instead, like the rush of boats sailing across the Channel to rescue trapped soldiers in France in 1940, hundreds of thousands of Polish people spontaneously mobilized to help: they give out tea, sandwiches and soup on the border, provide free transport across the country, gather bales of clothing to donate and offer spare rooms in their homes.

 

However, with the war showing no sign of ending there are signs that the bottom-up wave of help and hospitality is running out of steam.

 

Warsaw’s train stations and sports halls are filling up with camp beds or people sleeping in the rough as there simply aren’t enough free rooms in the country’s largest cities. Volunteers are engaged in increasingly testy exchanges with government officials they accuse of doing too little to help organize the relief effort and instead free-riding on the goodwill efforts of the population.

 

Joanna Niewczas, a volunteer coordinator in one of Warsaw’s sports halls, said in an appeal on LinkedIn that the facility is running out of food, medicines and hygiene products.

 

“The joke’s over, the governor [of the region Warsaw region] is only giving interviews that everything is under control, and we the volunteers are on the brink of physical and mental collapse,” she said.

 

Diverging narratives

The government insists all is fine.

 

“Everything is working as it should, there is no chaos,” said Konstanty Radziwiłł, governor of Mazovia province that includes the Polish capital, during a press conference. “In my opinion one can’t do more under these circumstances, at this pace and for such a big group of people.”

 

While the vast majority of the aid being given to Ukrainians in Poland is the result of volunteers, the government says it is playing a key coordinating role.

 

“This is the success of all the Polish people, but this success is made up of efficient coordination and cooperation between the government, the [local] administration, NGOs, and all people who got involved,” Paweł Szefernaker, the deputy minister of interior responsible for cooperation between the government and local authorities, told POLITICO.

 

The government is also basking in international praise, a big change from the recent past when it was more often subjected to criticism for backsliding on the EU’s democratic rules.

 

“I have seldom felt so emotional than the moment I saw Polish people receiving the refugees at the border with tea, taking them into their homes. Incredible. And that makes me a proud European,” Frans Timmermans, vice president of the European Commission, said on Monday.

 

But opposition parties and some volunteers say that the nationalist government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party is taking political credit for the voluntary outpouring of aid — and that it has no plan for what to do when the number of refugees increases and people’s capacity to help runs out.

 

“This never-ending PR about how the government is heroically solving all the problems, it’s nothing else than a slap,” Marcin Kierwiński, secretary-general of Civic Platform, Poland’s main opposition party, said at a press conference. “A slap for millions of Poles who, regardless of the fact that the government is not doing anything, took the help for their Ukrainian brothers on their own shoulders.”

 

The tension is almost certain to get worse.

 

More than 100,000 people a day are crossing into Poland from Ukraine and the numbers fleeing show no sign of relenting as the Russian campaign bombards Ukraine’s eastern cities, causing growing numbers of civilian casualties. The UNHCR said Thursday that more than 2 million people had left Ukraine since the Russian invasion — Poland is a favored destination because it has a 500-kilometer border with Ukraine, is culturally and linguistically similar and already has over a million Ukrainians living and working in the country.

 

The interior ministry has mobilized border guards, the military, police and firefighters to ensure security and provide refugees with swift passage through the borders and transportation. Local authorities have also set up temporary reception and information centers in every Polish region.

 

“The central administration’s role is to secure the border, organize the work on the border, provide security through the uniformed services and organize train transports from the border to other towns in central Poland,” said Szefernaker. “We’re organizing this all.”

 

Helping arrivals

The Polish parliament on Wednesday approved new measures to help Ukrainians: permission to stay legally in the country for 18 months, speeding up the registration process, which will give them access to social security and health care systems, one-time handouts of 300 złoty (€62) and funds targeted at schools for new students. Families hosting refugees will also receive 40 złoty per day for two months for each person they house.

 

But volunteers and local officials say that isn’t enough to shelter and integrate such an enormous number of people.

 

Krzysztof Kosiński, the mayor of Ciechanów, a small town in central Poland that has organized four transports of goods for Ukrainians and is hosting 171 people, says the whole burden of accepting refugees lies on local authorities.

 

“Up until today, we haven’t got a single złoty from the state budget to spend on the aid for refugees,” he said, stressing that Polish cities will ask the European Commission and other governments which want to provide financial aid to Ukraine streamline the money straight to the local authorities.

 

The problem of financing is also raised by volunteers. Zosia Zochniak, who organized the collection and storage of clothes and other items for 500 refugees in Warsaw, published an Instagram post with an open letter to Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, asking him what’s next.

 

“In the last 10 days I hardly saw my daughters, I called off all the meetings at work, barely slept and ate, the storage space of my company, which gives employment and financial stability to 50 people, has turned into an aid space, and then asylum for people coming from Ukraine,” she said. She says she now wants to return to her normal life, but she doesn’t want to be indifferent to what’s happening.

 

“We want to join forces with you,” she told Duda. “To help you systemize this whole thing.”

 

The European Commission announced at least €500 million of additional EU funding to deal with the humanitarian crisis. The EU has also agreed to invoke the Temporary Protection Directive, allowing Ukrainians to stay and move around the bloc for up to three years with instant rights to live and work, and also offer them access to social service benefits like housing and medical care. They are also allowed to enter the EU without visas.

 

It’s not clear how many Ukrainians are staying in Poland and how many are moving west, but countries from Germany to Belgium are reporting growing numbers of refugees.

 

But even with larger numbers moving on, Poland’s Dunkirk moment of a massive volunteer effort is under strain. Szefernaker said that in the first days of the conflict, refugees often had relatives in Europe or a previously organized place to stay. Now many have nowhere to go.

 

“They’re escaping bombs falling down on civilian targets and those people reach Poland shocked, in some sort of war trauma. We see more and more people coming to the reception centers,” said Szefernaker.

 

The time of no refugee camps is drawing to an end. The reception centers are slowly turning into residence centers where people will be able to stay for longer.

 

“We’ve had a heartfelt response, but we’ll soon have an enormous problem,” Maciej Duszczyk, who studies migration at the University of Warsaw, told the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna newspaper. “Responsibility must be taken off the people who chose to accept refugees. We should say, ‘Thank you that you have accepted this family, now we are taking care of them.’ The state must regain control of this.”

 

CORRECTION: This article has been corrected to clarify the length of time Ukrainians can stay in Poland. It is 18 months.