Stories from the Belarusian-Polish border.
Amidst the endless sea of birch trees, a profound philosophy is revealed. A sense of European primal force. In the North-East, birch trees have witnessed history for tens of thousands of years, while the Białowieża Forest in Poland is the largest remaining fragment of the vast expanse of primeval forest that once covered the European plains—home to rare spirits. The forest is receding due to human encroachment, and fragments of it become visible as we drive towards the village of Kuźnica in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Just as human civilization has disturbed the spirits of the forest, so was the peace of the locals shattered in 2021 by the migration shock of our post-modern world on the Belarusian-Polish border.
The events of 2021 are still remembered not only by locals, as footage of thousands of immigrants violently crossing the border has been all over the world press. The crisis also served as inspiration for the Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, resulting in her latest work, The Green Border. The film captures the harrowing ordeal of a Syrian family amidst the Belarusian-Polish migration crisis. On October 15, 2023, the tables turned in Poland as the right-wing, Christian-conservative ruling Law and Justice party lost to the united opposition parties, after a campaign wherein migration stood as a focal point. While the red carpet was rolled out for Agnieszka Holland’s film, which won a special prize at the Venice International Film Festival, it also caused an emotional uproar and provoked a strong reaction from the Polish right.
Party president Jarosław Kaczyński called a special press conference to clarify that the “disgusting and despicable” film “shamefully portrays” the Polish border guards, army, and police because the director hates her own country. Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro was even less subtle: He compared Holland to Joseph Goebbels, recalling that it was “the Soviets and the Nazis who used propaganda films to destroy the image of Poland and Poles.” Agnieszka Holland, the daughter of an officer in the Warsaw Uprising and the granddaughter of victims of the Holocaust, demanded an apology and announced that she would press charges for defamation, which however did not move the Justice Minister, who stated he would not apologize.
The national scandal has had its impact, with 137,000 viewers watching The Green Border in its first weekend, the best result for a Polish film this year. Amidst the political battles and loud headlines, however, the voices of the people who lived through the most defining Polish crisis of 2021 were silenced.
Slowly we arrive in Kuźnica along Highway 19, which once linked Poland to Belarus. It is a road of hope for a better and more peaceful future because although the border has been closed since 2021, the Polish state is renovating and widening it to better serve passenger traffic and trade in the future. We pass through a deserted village to a large border crossing. It is quiet now, guarded by two border guards and a white tomcat of healthy weight.
Life has come to a standstill in Kuźnica. But the film by Agnieszka Holland bears testimony that it wasn’t always like this: while in 2019 there were 19 illegal border crossings in the section, by 2021 the number had risen to over 40,000. With the deterioration of the Polish-Belarusian situation, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko launched a hybrid war against Poland, using migration as a weapon. The vast majority of immigrants were men between the ages of 20 and 40 from 52 different countries, including Cuba, Iran, and India, while the most important countries of origin were Iraq and Afghanistan.
While the Mediterranean route is life-threatening and the Balkan route is stressful and challenging, the security of the Polish-Belarusian border makes it a hotbed of ‘luxury migration’. Specialized agencies in the sending countries organize the trips, which are largely aimed at the upper-middle class, as it can cost up to €10,000 for one person to travel to Europe. This of course includes flights, accommodation, visas, transport in Russia and Belarus, and other costs. “We have also come across invoices for larger amounts for accommodation bookings in Moscow and Minsk,” says one Polish border guard, pointing out that in some cases organized charter flights have transported immigrants to Minsk, who were told that German buses were waiting for them at the border heading for Berlin. The reasons vary: some are seeking to join relatives who arrived in Europe during the 2015 migration crisis, others are looking for EU social benefits for immigrants, with, of course, Germany being the primary destination.
The first groups were not aware of where they would be coming to, but things have changed since then. The Belarusian authorities transported the immigrants by bus to the Belarusian-Polish border, from where they were “dropped off” either by the authorities or by the smuggling networks on the Polish side. The Belarusian authorities are doing their utmost to secure the crossing. “There have been cases of plain-clothed Belarusian border guards damaging the Polish border fence,” says another border guard, who adds that there are immigrants who make a series of attempts to cross illegally into Poland at several points along the border, but they are certainly being transported along the border, as it would t is impossible to cover such distances on foot in such a short time.
Most of the immigrants crossing the border are “caught between two fires,” as there lies a 3-kilometer-wide closed zone along the Belarusian border, monitored by cameras and patrols. This zone is divided by two border fences, one at 700 meters from the borderline and the other at the three-kilometer perimeter. Opposite this is the Polish border fence, which was completed in the summer of 2022. In 2021, there were numerous cases in which the Belarusian authorities did not allow border crossers to return from the closed zone, leaving only one way out for anyone who didn’t get lost in the endless swamps and forests, toward the Polish border, which was protected by the authorities. The Polish border police and army rescued 72 people in 24 rescue operations, sometimes using helicopters to work in the particularly difficult, swampy terrain.
But this did not prevent countless tragedies from happening. At least 25 deaths have been linked to irregular migration along the entire border, with only human remains recovered in certain cases. In Kuźnica, three bodies were found, with hypothermia being the main cause in all cases, as it is difficult for illegal border crossers to prepare for the winter months and many get lost in the vast wilderness.
During the 2021 crisis, the authorities were joined by the Red Cross and Caritas Poland to help immigrants, but there were also organizations promoting illegal immigration that ignored Polish law and security. “There were leaflets with a Warsaw phone number on them, offering to help people to continue their journey if they did not inform the authorities,” said one resident, referring to external organizers. The aim of the immigrants is well illustrated by the fact that a Polish foundation provided accommodation for 350 people, 349 of whom left for Germany within a short time.
Recently, smugglers have also been trying to hide among immigrants in order to enter Poland and facilitate human trafficking. “After a successful transport, they make themselves arrested by the authorities, who deport them back to Belarus and it starts all over again,” said Kataryzna Zdanowicz, a spokeswoman for the Polish border police in the region.
According to her, the most shocking thing was that the Belarusian border guards, who were their colleagues and friends, stood by and even encouraged it. To the south of Kuźnica is a border river, the Świsłocz, where every year before the pandemic and the war, Belarusian and Polish border guards used to organize joint kayak tours. “This border used to be ours, we used to guard it together, but today they don’t even answer the phone,” said a colleague of Zdanowicz.
The border was closed down in the autumn of 2021, followed by the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2022, when tank traps appeared at the crossing. For Kuźnica had been cut off from Belarus even before the war, and the depopulation of the border brought silence not only to the border guards but also to the townsfolk.
Life has changed since the closing of the border: many businesses have gone bankrupt, some residents have moved away, and shops and restaurants that made a living from border traffic have closed. However, the Belarusian population has not disappeared completely, as many internet companies operate collection points in the village and families circumventing EU sanctions cross the Belarus-Lithuania border to pick up their orders.
“Since the fence was built, everything is calmer, it has changed our lives,” says Pawel Mikłasz, the mayor of Kuźnica, who, nevertheless, remembers 2021 with a heavy heart. Fear and anxiety swept through the locals as strangers arrived from all over the world, yet there was no sense of panic, with the people of Kuźnica giving the authorities and sometimes the immigrants all the help they could, whether it was food, water, or warm clothes. “I’ve lived here for decades, the crisis has changed little for me,” said Miklasz, who said that a local leader should not panic because the authorities are there to help and that the community can overcome any obstacle by working together.
But there is one obstacle that cannot be overcome: the last time the border was closed before 2021 was in 1944, and from then until the regime change it divided families, with many relatives finding homes on either side of the border. Until the migration crisis, there was free passage, but since then there has been a rupture, not only between family members but also between cooperating Belarusian and Polish villages in the border areas. Sister towns, joint EU tenders, visits, friendships—all of that is a thing of the past, while in Belarus a climate of fear of the authorities is stifling cooperation. “Belarusians are excellent people, poor, yet they share everything. But history has intervened and the Minsk authorities have given orders,” said Mikłasz, stressing that it’s the authorities and the Belarusian dictatorship that corrupt everything, but that time will eventually bring change.
According to the mayor of the village, no one is concerned with the film of Agnieszka Holland, which depicts “false events aimed at discrediting the authorities.” “We are here, we know the situation, we know the reality, unlike someone who has probably never been here,” says Pawel Mikłasz. Inside the border police building, views on the film are not much better: “It is unacceptable to portray the border police, those who serve the law and have saved people, in this way.” This sentiment is reinforced by the countless children’s drawings in the corridors of the building, depicting border guards protecting the Polish border.
Currently, an 186-kilometer stretch of the border is under 24-hour surveillance. The fence is flanked by a 15-meter protection zone, with a host of motion sensors and cameras that will trigger an immediate alert in case of a threat. They are prepared for the possibility of a military attack from Belarus, with the Polish army stationing forces in the area. “Belarus is unpredictable at the moment, we have to think ahead,” said Kataryzna Zdanowicz, who said the threat posed by the Wagner Group should not be taken lightly, as they could be involved in human trafficking, a lucrative business. Still, even at the border, the hope is alive that the situation will change in time.
“The migration crisis was organized, it brought uncertainty, but we won and today we can go mushroom picking in the forest with more peace of mind,” said a resident. “We hope that one day the border will be open again. It has been closed more than once, we will get through this too,” said Pawel Mikłasz, relating a family story: “My father was deported to a German labor camp in 1943, he was supposed to return to the Belarusian side in 1945, but the border was closed in 1944. He could only see his family again 30 years later. We are waiting for change, we are waiting for relief. We are hopeful and we know that they are too, on the other side.”
In the meantime, Afghan, Tajik, and Uzbek smugglers work tirelessly, albeit not with great intensity. At the beginning of the year, 500 people were detained by Polish authorities for human trafficking. The broken fence next to the building of the border police stands as a reminder of the 2021 crisis.
The press trip was organized by the Wacław Felczak Polish-Hungarian Cooperation Institute, and the article was written in cooperation between the editorial staff of Hype&Hyper and the Institute.
Illustration: László Bárdos