Green lights in the homes of the country to help those fleeing Belarus. 95-year-old Mikołaj: “I was helped against Nazis and Russians, it’s up to me to reciprocate”
FROM THE REPORT TO NAREWKA (POLAND). In the darkness in which Fortress Europe has fallen, there is still a hope made of small green lights that shine almost shamelessly over the heads of the soldiers, the thread spinato and the police vans that seal the border between Poland and Belarus. Rays that manage, yes, to overcome the blackness of the forest where thousands of asylum seekers headed for Europe are trapped. “These lights are to let those kids know that there are safe and warm places to find shelterro “.
Mikołaj Cierpisław is 95 years old and lives on the edge of Werstok, a tiny village on the border. He, like dozens of Poles, has decided to do his part, turn on a green light in the window and open his house to those in need. He didn’t have a green light bulb, so he lined the whole window with colored plastic. “At least it looks good,” he protests. On the living room table he has set up a samovar that keeps tea warm, red plastic cups and biscuits. In the kitchen he shows a pot with a ready-made chicken soup: «So in case they arrive…». Mikołaj is gruff, to his nephew, who brings him the groceries once a week, he gives orders: “He has to give a hand too, he has to return the favor, because otherwise notn would never have been born “. And what would this favor be? “When I was 14, the Nazis came here. They occupied the city, we were left with nothing. Someone helped us, otherwise we would not have survived. Then the Russians came, and history repeated itself. And still someone helped us, I don’t even know who it was. Now it’s my turn to reciprocateAnd”.
About ten days ago a family knocked on Mikołaj’s door: “They were so pale that they looked dead, the child had a stocking on his head, used as a hat.” He, like hundreds of Poles living near the border, is in constant contact with the NGOs that have been helping migrants for months. If someone “finds” them, the organizations are reported, which have emergency response teams active 24 hours a day. Yesterday morning, in the area near Bielsk Podlaski, the NGO Granica saved a Syrian boy, an Iraqi and a Kurd, who he had lost consciousness.
No one can enter the red zone, neither the rescuers nor the journalists, who gravitate to the edge of the forbidden area. Occasionally someone is stopped, searched, then released with a fine. “We don’t know what is really happening in the forest, we don’t know how many dead we will find,” says the spokesperson for Fundacja Ocalenie, one of the most active NGOs on the border. Volunteers patrol the woods near the exclusion zone in search of migrants and hang bags of food, water and dry clothes on the trees, hoping that they will be found. In the 4 centers organized by Caritas, tons of food are rainingbodies, sleeping bags, drinking water, winter jackets and clothes, blankets, gloves. The bishops of Bialystok, Drohiczyn and Siedlce met the parish priests, asking to support the migrants, other aid will come from the fundraisers on 21 November launched bya Episcopal Conference.
While Warsaw throws water on the fire and says in the voice of Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau that “the situation does not require an urgent meeting of NATO and the activation of Article 4”, the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, admits that the forces of Minsk they helped migrants to reach the border with Poland but, in an interview with the “BBC”, denies having organized a trafficking, attracting them with the promise of facilitating entry into Europe: “If others arrive we will not stop them, because they don’t want to stay in Belarus, they want to join the EU states ».
In the meantime, Polish civil society continues “resistance to humanity,” says Agata R., a housewife from Białowieża, who always has food in her backpack and a thermos with hot tea in case she meets someone. While bringing aid is not illegal, activists say fear of retaliation dissuades many Poles. Near the border hundreds of policemen and soldiers from special units stop cars and pedestrians, carry out searches, ask for documents and “reason for moving”. At Mikołaj’s house they have already turned up twice. Elsewhere, in the countryside near Orzeszkowo, the routine of a family-run inn does not seem to be any different from usual. At least until night falls. The rooms are all occupied by Polish police officers assigned to border controls. The parking lot is full of vans, the dining room of men in uniform.
But then, in the small backyard overlooking the forest, a light comes on: Signora Maria (the name is a fictional one), owner of the inn, piles up bags of food, clothes, everything she can here. serve. In the warehouse it seems to have already hosted someone, but Maria does not want to talk about it. He does not want to “ruin business”, but “something had to be done”: “I decided that I could not ignore it when I dreamed of my two daughters, as if they were just born, abandoned among the leaves of the forest. Non I understood if they were alive or dead ».
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