Ukrainian refugees in Poland: Right-wing extremists also receive money from Warsaw

Ukrainian refugees in Poland
Right-wing radicals also receive money from Warsaw

By Thomas Dudek

In no other country do so many Ukrainian war refugees come to Poland. Not all aid organizations are financed by the Polish state. The national conservatives in power in Poland endow foundations and associations that are politically acceptable to them. One of the biggest beneficiaries is a nationally known right-wing extremist.

After the experiences of 2015 and the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border last year, many Western Europeans, but probably also many Poles, would probably not have believed what is currently happening in Poland. The country on the Vistula, which in recent years has resisted taking in refugees from the Near and Middle East, which has almost completed a meter-high fence on the border with Belarus to protect against illegal migrants for enormous sums, has been discovering and celebrating ever since Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 the culture of welcome.

Almost three million Ukrainian war refugees have so far crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border, the majority of whom remain in Poland. In the capital Warsaw alone, with its 1.8 million inhabitants, there are currently 300,000 Ukrainian refugees, which according to the city administration means a population increase of 17 percent. Both in absolute numbers and even more per capita, there are significantly more refugees in Poland today than in Germany seven years ago.

The fact that the reception and care of the refugees works is primarily thanks to Polish civil society. This begins with the initial care of the newcomers by volunteers and NGOs and extends to accommodation in many Polish households. For many Poles, this is a sign of their solidarity with their neighbors. The Polish state itself acts unbureaucratically in the registration of Ukrainian refugees, who thereby gain access to health care, education and the labor market. In addition, he supports people who have taken in Ukrainians, for example, and NGOs financially.

Government funding for conservative organizations

For the national conservatives in power in Poland, however, this also seems to be a way to donate funds to foundations, associations and organizations that are politically close to them. Which is not unusual since the PiS came to power in 2015. It doesn’t matter whether it’s projects by the national Catholic lawyers’ association “Ordo Iuris”, which, among other things, has supported municipalities in creating “LGBT ideology-free zones”, or foundations set up by pro-government journalists such as Paweł Lisicki’s. The editor-in-chief of the national-conservative weekly magazine “Do Rzeczy” is now the chairman of four foundations, some of which are financed with public funds and also see themselves in the “fight against LGBT”.

Also on the List of 130 foundations and associations, who receive public support for their Ukraine aid, ideological proximity seems to have played an important role. Because in addition to many foundations that have a Christian background, you will also find the “Foundation for Life” here. The Lodz-based anti-abortion organization, whose chairman makes no secret of his sympathies for the PiS, took care of it at the beginning of the year headlines, because she is said to have not adequately used funds from the Ministry of Justice of almost 2.5 million euros. Now she is being supported with almost 50,000 euros for her Ukraine aid.

A right-wing extremist as a refugee helper

But the most surprising name among the 130 state-supported organizations is the National Guard Association. With 264,000 zloty, the equivalent of around 65,000 euros, he is also one of the biggest beneficiaries. The association was endowed for its application “Humanitarian aid for Ukrainian citizens affected by the war conflict”. However, this is not a benign patriotic organization. The founder and chairman is Robert Bąkiewicz, who, as a co-organizer of the annual “Independence March” in Warsaw on November 11, is one of the best-known right-wing radicals in the country. Rights from all over Europe travel to the event, which takes place under a different motto every year. For example, in 2015 it was “Poland for Poles, Poland for Poles”, in 2020 “Our civilization, our conditions”, last year “Independence is not for sale”.

Bąkiewicz became even better known in autumn 2020, when nationwide protests took place in Poland against a ruling by the Constitutional Court, which further tightened the already strict abortion law in Poland. At the time, he announced the formation of the “National Guard” to protect the country’s Catholic churches, which were often a target of protesters at the time. During the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border last year, the “National Guard” organized a kind of militia there.

Against migrant workers from Ukraine

These activities obviously pleased the national conservatives in power in Poland. Although Bąkiewicz, who is a member of the National Radical Camp, a far-right group with roots in the interwar period that has in the past described democracy as “one of the stupidest systems man has created”, the clubs he runs have received funding over the past year in the amount of almost a million euros. His “National Guard” alone received around 500,000 euros, which they used to buy vehicles and real estate. Ukrainian war refugees are now housed in these properties.

It is doubtful whether Bąkiewicz is providing this help out of charity, as he recently stated in an interview with the national-Catholic Radio Maryja. In the past he warned against Ukrainian migrant workers in Poland because “Ukrainians build their national identity on a crime against the Poles”. With that, Bąkiewicz played on that Massacre of Volhynia in which the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) killed an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians living there between February 1943 and April 1944. A crime that Bąkiewicz apparently still cannot forgive today. In mid-April he warned that Ukraine should be helped but not forgotten about the massacre in Volhynia. For most Poles, this tragedy currently plays no role whatsoever in Polish-Ukrainian relations. Their solidarity with their eastern neighbors is greater.

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