No matter how many times Marks tried, no one would accept money even for expenses.
“It’s an act of enormous generosity,” she said. “They have experience of what the border is like. They have contacts with lawyers if you get snagged on any document-related trip wires. This is especially important for non-Ukrainians and people of color.”
In gratitude, Marks marshaled her own reach on social media to help other refugees find the same safety as her family. For the past week she has spent most of her waking hours on the phone, connecting African and Middle Eastern refugees to travel information or to Ozynska’s informal network of friends and activists.
“When I wake up in the morning, I have a sore right arm and a sore right thumb,” said Marks. “One day I will joke with Dominika that it would have been easier if she just let me send the money.”
“Belarus was pushing them onto Polish sites in the forest,” Ozynska said. “And then Polish border guards were sending them back.”
“I was stopped numerous times by police, having my car searched, my bag searched, having to explain why I have warm soup in my backpack, why I have socks in my backpack,” she recalled. “We were treated like criminals for trying to help.”
When the Polish government extended its welcome to all Ukrainian refugees, it felt to Ozynska like a shocking reversal.
“We don’t understand why the response was so different before.” Ozynska said. “The first two, three days in Poland especially, almost all citizens of Poland rushed to help the Ukrainians.”
The Polish people volunteered their cars, their apartments, and their time.
But then activists began to notice a disturbing pattern. Some Polish people offering rides balked when the refugees turned out to be African, Middle Eastern or Roma (traditionally itinerant peoples whose origins are in South Asia but who now live primarily in Europe). So did some offering accommodations.
Ozynska began to hear reports of African or Middle Eastern refugees stranded on the Ukrainian side of the border, or sent to crowded refugee centers.
“This has been really bittersweet,” she said. “To see so many people organized in Poland to help is really heartwarming. But when you hear such information — that they’re willing to help, but only Ukrainian citizens? For me this is really horrible.”
Car caravan for African, Middle Eastern refugees
Volunteers and activists had to change their focus, Ozynska said, building a network of drivers and safe accommodations for those who might face discrimination in Ukraine or at the border.
Margaret Amaka Ohia-Nowak, a Nigerian-Polish academic and anti-discrimination activist, also began hearing reports of discrimination the day after the Russian attack.
“At the border, there were two lines. One line was for white Ukrainians, and the other one was for ‘foreigners,’ ” she said. “Apparently most of the ‘foreigners’ — and I know this from people on the ground — were people of color.”
Officially, Polish officials have told her race is not a factor in issues at the border. But the situation on the ground appeared otherwise, she said.
“Black people experience on a daily basis that their documents are always double-searched, that they are always suspected not to be documented,” Ohia-Nowak said. “Individual prejudices played a role. But when those prejudices are performed by representatives of the state, then it becomes systemic.”
Ohia-Nowak began contacting other Nigerians and activists, asking what she could do to help.
“Somehow it just all started, I don’t really know how. At some point I was coordinating so many connections between people,” she said. “Those that were stranded at the border, or somewhere in the middle of Ukraine. People pushed out of the trains or buses, in the middle of nowhere.”
The job wasn’t done when refugees reached Poland, Ohia-Nowak said. For non-white people traveling from Ukraine, the difference between traveling with assistance and traveling alone could be stark.
Africans seeking accommodation were sometimes victimized by robbers or scam artists, Ohia-Nowak said. And in the border towns of Przemyśl and Lublin, Polish nationalists patrolled the streets .
“There were groups of hooligans… who were chasing people — or actually hunting people,” she said. “Hunting, and waiting for people of color and Black people to arrive.”
Ozynska said she heard from a Polish woman who’d been horrified to see a Syrian family accosted in the street. The woman invited the family to stay with her. But when they tried to cook her a meal in thanks, said Ozynska, they were not allowed to shop at the local grocery store.
Incidents of racial discrimination are not new, said Ohia-Nowak. But in circumstances of such dire emergency, they were exhausting.
“This brought a lot of emotions,” she said, “but also a lot of motivation.”
For now, she said, she’s trying to keep focused on what’s possible: the often overwhelming job of helping refugees find temporary housing, and a trip across the border.
“I gave up thinking that I would change the world, or that I would save the world,” Ohia-Nowak said. “But I’m trying. And I’m striving. And I still kind of believe idealistically that something will change. That’s the only thing I think I can do.”
Matthew Korfhage is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network’s Atlantic Region How We Live team. Email: mkorfhage@gannettnj.com | Twitter: @matthewkorfhage
