The Pressure of Duty

About 10 km. Depends on how you count - from city limits or from the city centre.

Have you ever thought that you would have to deal with the consequences of a war being fought so close to your city?

No. Even in the darkest scenarios, I never thought that a full-scale armed conflict would break out, with rockets falling on Lviv, 80 km from Przemyśl, on the first day, causing a massive influx of refugees. Although, within the framework of the crisis management plans that cities prepare, we had such a scenario as well.

And did it turn out to be like the defence training classes we used to have ‒ theoretical training that has to be completed but which will never be of any use?

A bit, yes. The situation quickly tested our preparedness. It became clear that crisis management plans have to be like a script to which you break the seal and step by step implement the scenario contained therein. And let me put it this way: we tested ourselves which aspects of these plans worked and which did not.

Meaning?

What worked was creating temporary shelters in case of a mass population movement. Schools were prepared for this. A quick notice was enough for the city's education department to contact the directors of the educational institutions, who became responsible for setting up the dormitories. And what didn't work ‒ or at least not immediately? We had not developed rules for coordinating the work of the volunteers. And we are not talking about a dozen or so people ‒ over two and a half thousand volunteers worked every day in Przemyśl, a city with a population of sixty thousand.

A veritable army of people.

An army that had to be fed, lodged overnight, assigned to specific tasks and monitored to see that they carried them out. It included groups organised in radically different ways. Take, for example, the 300 scouts. We gave them a place to stay in one of the schools. They immediately divided themselves into task forces. They introduced a shift system. That was great. But at the same time, we had people coming in as a sort of “all hands on deck” movement. They just hopped into a car, and they were here. After a few hours, they asked with disarming frankness if there was a chance of some accommodation for them. In the first days of the war, some even arrived just as they had when left home.

That was a spontaneous act of kindness, coming from the heart, and you call it a problem?

I don't want to use the word “problem”, but the mass kindness of the heart also had to be handled so that it wouldn't overwhelm us. Especially as these people were really helping. Many said: “I've been here for a few days, I'm pushing myself to the limit, I eat crap, I'll manage to go on for another week, but I could use a roof over my head, because how long can I sleep in the car?”

Those were not outrageous requirements.

Absolutely not. But it was still 2,500 people who had to be managed so as to be deployed in the optimum way. Not only that ‒ we still had to verify who they really were. They came to us from all over Poland, and often from abroad. We could not completely vouch for them. So, a vetting system had to be set up quickly.

Who fed them, vetted them?

We vetted them through a system created jointly with the police and the Border Guard. Over time, we put everyone who wanted to help through such a screening. Although, to be honest, it didn't work that way at the beginning. The vetting was random. Feeding? That was the least of the problems. We involved the schools. Parents and students took over cooking soups and making sandwiches. The principals managed their work efficiently. Schools operated 24 hours a day, with school kitchens working in shifts. We also received a great deal of help from Farmer's Wives' Associations. To be honest, I had no idea they had such a huge number of members. It turned out that we had several dozen such associations in the area. They had to be regrouped. Four were on duty each day. On the third and fourth day, global organisations appeared, including the American World Central Kitchen Foundation, which together with the city built the largest field kitchen, capable of serving up to 200,000 meals a day. At peak times, we handed out approximately 45‒50 thousand meals a day.

Do you remember the first day of the war? Televisions showed the blaring sirens. How did it look from the perspective of Przemyśl?

For years, I've had my morning routine. I get up before 6, drink coffee, listen to and read the news. When I found out about the invasion, I went to the office. We convened a meeting of our internal crisis team. It was 7.30 a.m. I felt a responsibility for the people, but I didn't feel that deep human fear. Not even for a second did a thought occur to me that the conflict could spread beyond the borders of Ukraine. Right from the start, we assumed that the invasion would cause an influx of migrants though. We set the first criteria for action while waiting for an announcement from madam voivode, who is responsible for crisis management on behalf of the central authorities.

What is the main thought when setting such criteria?

We have to do everything as if the crisis is already there. Another thought - the wave of refugees could be so massive that we might not be able to handle it. Especially as we've had a real winter going. At night, temperatures dropped to minus ten degrees Celsius. Even before the meeting with Madam Voivode [provincial governor], we contacted our partner cities in Ukraine. We asked them what was going on. Apart from Lviv, where we heard that missiles had fallen in the vicinity of the airport, things were quiet ‒ in Drohobych, Mostyska, Truskavets and Kamianets Podolskyi. They said: “we are at war”. And we kept repeating that if they need anything, anything at all, we are there for them. We kept repeating this, not yet knowing what was ahead.

In the first hours of the war, the Border Guards said there was no increased traffic at the crossings yet. But everyone felt it was the calm before the storm. Did you perceive it that way too?

No, absolutely not. The voivode received government guidelines as part of the management plan for our voivodship [province]. Reception points were designated. At 10.30 we heard: “get to work, you have to put them up”. No instructions were issued, nor did we have any ourselves. We wondered what the hell a “reception point” was. We understood that it was supposed to be the refugee's first point of contact with a safe country. But what next? What specifically? We went to the train station. We already knew that crowds were gathering at Lviv station. We have a direct connection with it ‒ just like with Kyiv or Odessa. We said to ourselves: there will be crowds coming in, it's cold. Surely people could use coffee, tea, water, a sandwich. So that's what we had at the start.

Who made it?

Water was supplied by the city. Coffee also came from our resources. Sandwiches were made by the schools, 200 to start with. Madam Voivode also appointed the deputy fire chief Daniel Dryniak, who is also our city councillor, to act as her representative. And thus, the two of us began to manage things. I designated 20 officials to get a grip on the system. Daniel pulled cadets from the firefighting school in Rzeszów. That was our starting resource. And we waited for the first train. It brought about 600 people. They were checked in, arrived at the main station. At first, I'll admit frankly, I was relieved. Nothing much had happened.

Nothing much?

Someone took a water, someone else a sandwich. Most people lined up to buy tickets. They bought them and started to travel further into Poland. I remember that we were sitting, looking at them. A few hours later there was another train and the situation repeated itself. On the first day only regular, scheduled trains were coming to Przemyśl, three a day. There were still sandwiches, water, people were passing through. And I even had this impression that they were tourists, only on a larger scale.

When did that change?

Very quickly. As early as the end of the first day, we received information about increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic at the border crossings in Medyka, 10 km away. We started a bus service. Two vehicles at first, on a shuttle basis. On the first day we admitted about a thousand refugees. On the second day the wave was rising. In addition to the trains, many people crossed the border on foot and in cars. And on the third day, the volunteers blocked access to the border. Everyone wanted to get to the crossing itself, to pick someone up, to rescue someone. Hence the quick decision to set up a car park at the former Tesco shop. It became a gathering place for those who offered transport and those who needed it.

And when did Przemyśl become a frontline town?

On the third, maybe fourth day. The original assumption was that the reception points created on behalf of the government would mainly serve the border. The reception point in Przemyśl, on the other hand, was to serve the railway border. Therefore, a reception point for people crossing the border on foot or by car was installed in Medyka. The only thing is, it was situated in a school which could accommodate 150 people per day. Therefore, 95 percent of the people who reached Poland on any given day would board buses and end up at our station. Then they were joined by people from the Korczowa crossing, because the reception point there was also over capacity. Once we received ten thousand people in one day, we felt that this was something totally unprecedented.

How many people came to the city at the peak time?

The peak occurred in March, in two waves. Fifty thousand refugees passed through the city every day. We felt enormous pressure.

What kind of pressure, from whom?

The pressure of duty. We knew those people had to be helped. And we did not get a minute's break. We could not afford to slip up. All the various services ‒ from the government administration, the voivode, the marshal, the city, the volunteers, the scouts ‒ all had specific tasks, there was no room for error. We had two thousand people per hour coming in. Just imagine what would have happened if the trains to take these people and distribute them further into Poland had not arrived, if we hadn’t been able to send them off...

I guess the 200 sandwiches you started with were no longer enough?

Of course not. On the fourth day, four schools in the city were already working full time. The principals did an excellent job of dividing up the volunteers, making lists of people who wanted to volunteer. People worked in several-hour shifts, slicing onions, cold cuts, bread, packing. We had at least six crisis management team meetings a day. We looked at what wasn't working and what needed some tuning up. We had people in the office whose job was to call around our local ‒ and then non-local ‒ producers. We managed to get several thousand rolls from bakers in the first few days. Sokołów meat processing plant asked how much cold cuts we needed. Offhand, we said “a tonne”. And a tonne turned up. I called a Ukrainian businessman operating in Poland: “Igor, here's the thing. I have rolls, cold cuts, but no cheese”. “So how much do you need?” “Two tonnes”. He sent the cheese. Over time, that changed.

How?

The companies started reaching out to us themselves. We had phone calls from all over Poland, even from other countries. A certain Polish candy powerhouse called me once: “Mr President, do you need chocolate?”

What did you say?

That at least half of the people who arrive are children. When they get a chocolate bar, a smile appears on their faces, if only for a moment. And I saw, for the first time in my life, what a truck full of chocolate looks like. Producers of bottled water acted in a similar way. They said: just let us know when, and we'll send it.

What did you think as you saw those thousands of people passing through the city?

I had to take a bird's eye view of everything and look at it from multiple perspectives. Analyse the pros and cons of individual decisions. It was also a defensive reaction ‒ not to dwell on any one person, their story, because there was another person waiting who also needed help. Still, some things linger in my mind.

What things, specifically?

I remember when the UN workers came to our town. By that time we already had an area set up, which we called the mother and child room. It was a bit of an overstatement, as it was just a designated part of the railway station. The idea was for women to be able to change and feed their babies in relative peace and quiet. It didn't ensure privacy, but it had a modicum of humanity that we wanted to provide for them in this whole horrid situation. We also had an area for more difficult cases.

What do you mean by “more difficult cases”?

People who have already lost someone in this war and whose minds were irreparably traumatised. For example, a woman whose husband and child were killed. She was tearing her hair out, scratched her face until it bled. Every day, there were more and more people like that. We had to keep an eye on them before they were sent for specialised psychiatric treatment, including to a hospital in Żurawica near Przemyśl. These people could not be left on their own. At the station, a group of psychologists tried to provide first aid to them.

Going back to UN representatives…

There were psychologists in that delegation. They insisted on going into these rooms, talking to people. They wanted to do survey interviews for a report they would write. I said that these people needed peace and quiet, I advised against it. Nevertheless, they went in and after a while they were back. They regretted going in at all. They didn't know how to behave in the face of tragedy. We had no choice. Even though much of what we did was done ad hoc, on an action-reaction basis. For example, on the third day, when I came to the medical post at the railway station and asked how they were doing, they replied: everything under control. A few sprains, one frostbite, a case of dehydration. Manageable. And the very next day they reported: 250 people. Frostbite, infirmity, heart disorders. Out of those 250 people, 20 went to a hospital. By then, I no longer saw “tourists” in them. A few days of war were enough for people's faces to change dramatically ‒ their experiences, their fears were reflected in them. As for people with typical war wounds, we had only a few dozen in the following months, because they were mostly transported by a medical train that the government had placed near the station in Mostyska. The ones who came to us were those who could get here on their own, under their own steam.

What about the children? Is there a recipe for taking care of them?

Children have different levels of awareness. Two-, three-, four-year-olds didn't know what was happening, they didn't feel the horror. You could soothe them with that candy bar. And once backpacks with colouring books appeared, things got easy. With older children, it was different. They knew that their dad was staying at home in Ukraine, fighting the war. I am not a psychologist, but I saw that they felt better when they had someone close to them: their mother, grandmother, grandfather, older siblings. Our role was to provide support for the adults because if the adults achieved relative peace of mind, it extended to the children. We took special care of pregnant women and those with babies. Together with the Ronald McDonald Foundation, we set up a medical centre where gynaecological and paediatric examinations were carried out. A humanitarian aid centre and a kindergarten run by two foundations from Israel were also set up in the former Tesco store. A playground was built, our volunteers played catch with the children. We distracted them from the thought that they were temporarily living on the floor of a former supermarket.

When did the fatigue come? How did attitudes towards helping change?

We quickly realised that the rush to help had to come to an end. And not because people would grow bored or change their minds, but because they would eventually have to return to their regular responsibilities. From the very beginning, we made sure to design the aid in a way that would place as little burden on people of Przemyśl as possible. We never closed any schools, even though there were refugees in the classrooms. The only inconvenience for the students was the temporary lack of PE lessons. We quickly set up a transport system for refugees that was independent of public transport, so that no one could later say that they were unable to get to class, to work or to a doctor. Another reason for doing it was that I couldn't imagine that a person fleeing the war, with all their belongings in a single suitcase, should be forced to search blindly for the right bus service. People had to be helped in the simplest way possible. That is why we provided special lines to the hospital and places of accommodation.

How many Ukrainians remain in Przemyśl to this day?

It was clear from the start that we were the city that would take on the first wave of refugees and smoothly help them spread across the country. How many people are left? It is difficult to estimate. I'll be honest: I'm annoyed by attempts at such local estimates. Because what should be the basis for them? The number of PESEL numbers issued? Then it would probably turn out that we have more refugees than, for example, Rzeszów. And this is impossible, because most people just registered to receive a PESEL number and moved on. Looking at the phone logins to the surrounding BTS stations doesn't make sense either. There is traffic all the time, people are moving. We could look at the number of Ukrainian children in schools ‒ there are several hundred in Przemyśl ‒ but we know that about 70 percent of them have not enrolled in Polish institutions. And they are not registered in any education system today, neither ours nor theirs.

What is the situation of border traffic now?

Some 3‒4 thousand people arrive daily. The vast majority are people travelling in both directions. About 200‒300 people a day stay overnight at our humanitarian centre. This is an important number, because the admission regulations of the facility state that only the persons crossing the border for the first time are eligible. I was criticised for this. But we decided that if someone crosses the border for the umpteenth time, in our eyes they are no longer a refugee, because they have gotten a grip on their situation in some way or another. That way I have a guarantee that we are supporting people who really need help and not, for example, peddlers hoping for free accommodation.

Has this year changed the people of Przemyśl in some way?

It has often been said in Poland that one cannot be content just because there is hot water on tap. Now I think it is a reason for contentment after all. I remember a young couple with two tiny children, one still at the breast, the other maybe three years old. I saw them at the train station, somewhere in a corner. It was the beginning of March. I remembered that a friend had reported a while ago that he had a flat that I could make use of. I offered for them to go there, spend the night in humane conditions, wash up before further travel. Their distrust was palpable. With effort, I barely managed to convince them. A friend packed them into a car and brought them to the train the next morning. I spotted this Ukrainian with his family: a big, burly guy, with glassy eyes. He asked: “why are you guys doing this for us?”. “Because you need it”. Such moments change a person, and there were plenty of them.

What about you? Did this war change you as well?

I was once asked whether I find this situation somewhat ironic.

Could you be more specific?

As an MP, I prepared a draft resolution establishing 11 July as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Genocide in Volhynia. So later, I was asked whether this is not a contradiction. Such an initiative on one hand, and helping Ukrainians on the other. I replied that there was no contradiction at all and that this was the very point of historical remembrance. My history teacher, a brilliant man, used to hammer home to us that the purpose of learning history is not to memorise dates and names, but to ensure that certain things would never happen again. ©℗