Escape from Ukraine: Poland opens arms and wallets

Apartments are offered and sleeping pads and diapers are bought: In Poland, refugees from the Ukraine are welcomed with open arms. Now tens of thousands come every day.

It’s like all of Warsaw is on its feet. Queues of cars form all day in front of a collection point for aid supplies; many park further away and haul moving boxes with clothes, blankets and groceries onto the premises. Things that could be needed by people who have fled head over heels or whose homes were bombed by the Russian army.

“We try to help as much as we can. We just went shopping, the list is constantly changing, we see what is needed on the Internet,” says one woman. You bought diapers, drinking bottles and thermos flasks. “I am very pleased that so many people are getting involved.”

The Poles make way

In fact, the topic of “helping Ukrainians” is omnipresent. Apartments are offered, quarters cleared, suitable forms of help are discussed. People even rush to the border to help. “We were in a shop that sells tents, sleeping mats and sleeping bags. Everything is already sold out. So you can see that people want to help,” says one man.

And a woman explains: “People offer rooms, floors in their houses. There is also a group that takes in pets. It’s a big mobilization.”

“We are all afraid”

The government set up a logistics center to bring relief supplies to Ukraine. At the same time, more and more war refugees are coming into the country. While the border guards reported 20,000 on the first day of the war, it was almost 50,000 people within 24 hours.

Furthermore, most stay with Ukrainians who are already working in the country or travel on to relatives elsewhere in Europe. Since able-bodied men are not allowed to leave the country, it is mainly women and children who come.

“We’re at war, bombs are falling. We want to live, hopefully we’ll survive this time. This is a stop here and I hope it will end as soon as possible,” says a woman. Another refugee says: “Tomorrow I’m going to Italy, where my sister lives. The situation here is critical, there’s panic, there was a shot near Lemberg.”

“A terrible suffering. We say goodbye to our children, husbands, our boys, we are all afraid,” says a third woman.

High approval for refugee admission

Poland welcomes these people with wide-open borders: if necessary, Ukrainians are admitted without valid papers, and the quarantine of unvaccinated people is dispensed with.

Polls show widespread support for accepting refugees, far more so than during last fall’s crisis involving migrants from Belarus.

Dislike of Russia?

At the donation collection point in Warsaw, people explain this social movement as follows: “Many Ukrainians live here every day, it’s a natural impulse,” says a young Polish woman. “I can’t imagine just sitting there and doing nothing. We’re doing what we can. I’m happy that Poland is behaving this way – at least that’s comforting.”

And one man says: “The Poles have always been known for helping others, even if they have many problems themselves. All the more so because they don’t like the Russians.” One woman describes it differently: “People of our age feel like citizens of the world, it doesn’t matter if someone comes from Ukraine, it’s a person. And Russia can be with us in the same way, and if it were, I would also count on the help of the neighbors.”