A Land Without Strangers
For years Poland has lacked a meaningful support system for refugees, and the new pseudo-autocratic state, led by the far-right Law and Justice party (PiS), is committed to an explicitly xenophobic platform. Life for foreigners has become increasingly complicated since the elections in October 2015. There has been a collapse of support for migrants, a rapid conflation of the terms ‘Muslim’, ‘refugee’ and ‘terrorist’.
.. Her home was vandalized the week of my visit. She’s learned to say as little as possible.
‘What made you decide to come to Poland?’ I ask.
‘There was an accident,’ she says.
‘What sort of accident?’
‘A car accident.’
‘Well, what happened?’
‘A Russian tank ran into our car.’
Several of her young children were inside the car at the time, she adds.
.. Poland happens to be one of the most homogenous countries on earth. Few places so large and populous can claim to be as unified in race, ethnicity, language, religion – you name it.
.. About 97 per cent of Poland’s population are ethnic Pole
.. Jewish and Roma communities may have suffered centuries of abuse, but we were an unwavering presence in Poland – until the Holocaust. Enclaves of Ukrainians and Lithuanians persisted right up until Stalin’s deportation orders. The country’s ethnic pluralism never recovered.