PRZEMYŚL, Poland — Agata Kuzmiek, a Polish-language teacher at Primary School No. 5 in Przemyśl, estimates she has been working for about 18 hours a day since Feb. 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
She finishes a day of teaching and then moves to the school’s gymnasium-turned-refugee shelter to volunteer, helping coordinate aid for newly arrived Ukrainians.
“We work 24/7,” Kuzmiek said. “During the school day, lessons are happening like normal. We teach a day of lessons, then volunteer.”
Poland has taken in more than 2 million refugees since the war began — more than any other country. Many have come through Przemyśl, which has a train station and is adjacent to two border crossings. The city of around 60,000 has been thrust into the spotlight of Europe’s latest refugee crisis and left to manage a massive humanitarian aid response.
Schools, theaters, and warehouses have been turned into temporary shelters. Volunteers, along with local and international NGOs, offer translation, medical, and logistical support at the train station and newly fashioned refugee reception centers.
Poland has not traditionally welcomed refugees. In fact, the country has a record of violently pushing back people from the Middle East and Africa. Now, international NGOs, charities, and United Nations agencies are setting up shop, conducting needs assessments to see how they might help and rapidly hiring new staffers.
In the meantime, the refugee response has been coordinated and run almost entirely by independent volunteers like Kuzmiek — ordinary citizens who organized themselves ad hoc over the past few weeks, as Poland’s national and local authorities oversaw the broader effort.
The majority of Ukrainians don’t require visas to enter countries across Europe, and the European Union for the first time has applied a "temporary protection" measure to extend their ability to stay. So over 3 million people have arrived in Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Moldova with relative ease, and Ukrainian nationals are permitted to travel throughout most of Europe freely.
But volunteers told Devex that they worry about the sustainability of the response and the lack of high-level coordination. Some signs indicate that volunteers are strained and growing tired before major NGOs have fully implemented their operations.
“No one ever thought there would be a war. It’s sudden. We had to act immediately,” Kuzmiek said. “We don’t know how long we will do this. Everyone only thinks about now. We just want to give as much help as is needed.”
At Przemyśl’s train station, arrivals from Ukraine sit on benches, taking a moment to rest after a long journey as they wait to begin the next leg. Members of the Polish army ferry suitcases in and out, and police stand at the doors and exits. Volunteers in high-visibility vests offer food and translation.
Ada Wordsworth, a volunteer from the United Kingdom, arrived at Przemyśl independently, wanting to lend her Russian-language skills. She wrote the languages she speaks on her vest.
“It’s functioning now because it’s fresh and new, but give it six weeks and people will leave,” she said of the volunteers’ efforts. A Przemyśl vice mayor told Reuters he was already seeing a decrease in the number of volunteers.
One shelter in Przemyśl is run by the Association of Ukrainians in Poland, which has a social center in the city and operates all over the country. The organization has been focusing on communication, using members’ Ukrainian-language skills to fill the gaps among other volunteers.
“Now it seems more coordinated, more regular,” said Lila Kalinowska, a volunteer with the group. “We try all the time to react when we see holes in the humanitarian aid response.”
In addition to the city shelters, many Polish families have taken refugees into their own homes, coordinating and financing support out of their own pockets and with the help of friends and relatives. The Polish Parliament has approved a law offering 40 zlotys ($9) per day for up to two months to people providing accommodation. Poland’s Ministry of the Interior and Administration, meanwhile, has said it will begin reimbursing local governments for the costs of supporting refugees.
“We don’t know how long we will do this. Everyone only thinks about now. We just want to give as much help as is needed.”
— Agata Kuzmiek, a volunteer in Poland“From the start, the refugee response has been managed by the Polish government. Their model, their choice was to use border guards, police, the fire services, but then also bring in volunteers,” said Matthew Saltmarsh, a UN Refugee Agency spokesperson who recently spent time on the ground in the country. UNHCR has a warehouse in Poland that delivers basic necessities to Ukraine and conducted trainings with volunteers on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse.
In the coming weeks, UNHCR will begin rolling out a child protection system in cooperation with UNICEF, along with a cash support program with Caritas Internationalis and a Polish charity, Saltmarsh said.
“Now ourselves, partners like IOM [the International Organization for Migration, and] UNICEF, we’re starting to do more and trying to help those volunteers. Many of them are exhausted. The first sort of phase is over. Volunteers have to go back to their jobs, so we’re certainly ready to support as needed,” he said.
The Norwegian Refugee Council told Devex its emergency response has been set up along Ukraine’s borders.
“We have set up an office in Warsaw and are currently working through local partners and Polish organizations to provide emergency aid to refugees entering Poland from Ukraine,” said Becky Bakr Abdulla, a communications officer at NRC. “Our main areas of response are direct cash transfers, shelter, and legal aid.” The organization has allotted $20 million for 300,000 recipients in Poland.
Caritas and World Central Kitchen are providing medical care and hot meals, respectively, at the Przemyśl train station and reception centers.
“We’re able to scale our response quickly by partnering with local organizations,” said Fiona Donovan, a relief operations manager with WCK. The NGO has set up a field kitchen in Przemyśl and has partnered with several local restaurants and caterers to serve meals at border crossings and aid stations. “Our network of restaurants have become food first responders,” she said.
Donovan said that sourcing had been challenging amid supply chain shortages but that the organization was attempting to source locally, ordering from multiple vendors so as to not deplete the stores of any one source.
In the first days of the war, Kamila Rutka, a local Polish restaurateur partnering with WCK, said she and her staff helped on an individual level. One day, they went to a border crossing with soup, and it was finished within minutes. The restaurant later began cooking on a larger scale, with supplies and support from WCK.
“We had a meeting three weeks ago wondering if the restaurant can handle a party of 50 people. At the time, I thought maybe not. Now we cook for thousands every day,” Rutka said. She has been working for 12 hours daily for the past three weeks. She and her staff are currently set up in a refugee reception center, which was previously a mall, near Przemyśl.
There, Rutka fields calls about deliveries and makes shopping plans for more food supplies after her shift. After weeks of this, she said the days have started to blend together.
“I miss [having] someone to be on the top to organize. The first two or three weeks gave us a lot of power. But I think they are tired,” she said, gesturing to the volunteers. “I am tired. People are simply tired.”
About the author
Moira Lavelle
Moira Lavelle is an independent reporter based in Athens, Greece. She covers migration, borders, gender, and politics, and she has written previously for The Independent, Al Jazeera, The Times of London, VICE, and other publications.
