Poland and Ukraine: we want to coexist despite differences and wounds

On August 25, the President of Poland announced a veto of the government bill that was meant to regulate protection and support for families fleeing the war. This decision, and the language that accompanied it – promises to make aid for children conditional on their parent’s employment, prolonging the path to citizenship, reigniting historical disputes – is not a matter of mood, but of cold political calculation.

It strikes at Ukrainian refugee women, at their children, at the elderly and the sick; it also strikes at our schools, doctors, and local governments. Instead of certainty, it brings fear; instead of calm, it threatens family separations, secondary migration, and the erosion of trust in the Polish state.

Imagine that you are the ones at war defending your homeland – and a neighboring country treats your wives, mothers, and daughters as hostages of politics.

After the President’s decision, thousands of homes across Poland were filled with shock, bitterness, and a sense of betrayal. Mothers who fled with children and sick parents from cities and villages turned to rubble now ask themselves: where are we supposed to flee next? Women who chose Poland out of love and trust now feel that this love has not been reciprocated.

A child is not a lifeless entry in a statute, and the aid granted to that child cannot be used as leverage against their mother. Solidarity is not seasonal, it is not a trend. If it is true in March, it must also be true in August. Memory is not a cudgel. A state that, instead of healing the wounds of history, reaches for easy symbols does not build community. A state cannot be a street theater. A serious state chooses responsibility, not political spectacle: procedures, clear communication, protection of the most vulnerable.

We, Polish women – mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers – say it plainly: no one has the right to impose conditions, in our name, on women fleeing war. We will not accept the pain and suffering of people in need of our support being turned into fuel for political disputes. We will not allow the destruction of the trust on which community stands. This is a matter of national interest and of our common conscience. It is bridges – not walls – that turn neighbors into allies, and it is predictable and just law, together with the language of respect, that strengthens Poland’s security more than populist shouting from the podium.

Europe – and therefore we as well – has committed to continuity of protection for civilians fleeing aggression. It is our duty to keep that word. This means one thing: to confirm publicly, clearly, and without ambiguity that the families who trusted Poland will not wake up tomorrow in a legal vacuum; that no child will be punished because their parent does not have employment; that the language of power will not divide people into “ours” and “others.” For a child and their single mother, the law must be a shield, not a tool of coercion into loyalty and obedience. Politics must be service, not spectacle.

We call on you, who make the law and represent the Republic, to restore certainty of protection and to reject words that stigmatize instead of protect. Let the law serve people, not political games. Let Poland remain a home where a mother does not have to ask: “Where to now?” – because the answer will always be: “Stay in a country that keeps its word.”

This is not a dispute over legal technicalities. It is a question of the face of the Republic. Will it be a state of the word that is kept – or a state of words thrown to the wind? Will we stand on the side of mothers and children – or on the side of fear?

Signed:
Polish women – mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, grandmothers.

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As of today, the letter has been endorsed by over two thousand women from across Poland — among them three former First Ladies of the Republic of Poland, Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk, and internationally acclaimed filmmaker Agnieszka Holland. Their voices stand alongside those of hundreds of other women — mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers — who have chosen to sign as a gesture of solidarity and moral responsibility.

The full list of signatories is available at the link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/135yP6XadgyRJmECLyIaxQTHcOyjOVy9Y4mgFP9klzIM/edit?tab=t.0

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‍Melania Krych: What is this Zryw [eng. Surge]  all about?

Julia Wojciechowska: We’re the generation that, at the time of the government transition in 2015, was still in our teens. Our coming of age was marked by constant political debate — at home, at school, on the streets. And it was a debate that neither included us nor spoke to us. But times have changed.

Agnieszka Gryz: Do you know the playbook for apathy? When the key political events unfold right under your nose, shaping your tomorrow, and yet you can neither cast a vote nor even raise your voice. Zryw didn’t begin the day we registered the Foundation — it began, piece by piece, within each of us, years ago.

JW: And yes, now we run a Foundation. We’re not selling a cat in a bag: we are political, but we are not partisan. We want to build the next generation of state leaders. We’ve just finished recruitment for our first zryw, a four-day public leadership retreat in the Tatra mountains.  

Why public servants? Don’t we have enough of those?

JW: The bench is short and not very attractive. We have experts, and we have politicians. The experts have spent the last eight years climbing corporate ladders or building Euro-careers in Brussels; they have families to support. And suddenly they’re supposed to destabilize their lives to take a ministry job for a quarter of the salary?
Meanwhile, there are plenty of young people who can and want to step in but no one is inviting them. And what’s more, when they knock on the door themselves, no one cares to open it.

AG: Right now, the most reliable “pipeline” into public service is through party youth wings. Those are often comprised of people who, from a very young age, have been focused solely on securing a particular seat. And once they’re in it, they don’t want to leave. What would their alternative be? And while not all youth wings are the same, the young people we’ve met often had neither vision nor their own ideas, only the party line that raised them.

That’s not the kind of public service we want Zryw to represent. Our diagnosis isn’t about a lack of knowledge or experience. What’s missing are people willing to make decisions and take responsibility for them; to risk and bear the consequences. State leaders, not mouthpieces of the party. I still remember being deeply struck by the words of Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, then a minister. Asked about the stability of his profession, he replied that his coat always hung on the back of his chair: “I am a public servant and a politician, and I must always be ready… at any moment. If I have to leave, I take my coat and I go.” We want to fear neither stepping in nor out.

Who applied to the first Zryw? Who did you select?

AG: The range was incredible. From doctors and engineers to political science students and civil servants. We received applications from 149 towns across all 16 Polish regions, plus 12 cities abroad. The final group is eclectic in the best way: a trainee fighter jet pilot, a former health expert abroad, aspiring local government leader.

JW: But only 35% of applications came from women. However, among those invited for interviews, women made up half,  because the candidates who did apply, were incredibly strong. That’s a slightly higher ratio than the proportion of women in our parliament. It shows that the imbalance of opportunities starts much earlier.

This won’t fix itself, but our group speaks for itself: neither Zryw nor Poland has a shortage of capable, ambitious women.

Right, I’ll tell you an anecdote. We recently received a lengthy comment on a blog post ["Our Favorite Elections: Who's Joining the September Zryw?" - Ed.], in which we mentioned the deficit of female applicants. Someone criticized us for “making up inequality,” since recruitment was open to everyone, they argued. “Anyone could click the link.” They claimed that bringing up such stats could discourage young men from public service because nowadays, any and all gender differences are painted as discrimination.

And how did you take that comment?

AG: Honestly, I was glad! Someone took the time to write out their thoughts. Polemic is a valuable legacy of Polish public life, and it’s an honor to partake in and to foster it. Of course, I disagreed with the arguments themselves, because discrimination and systemic inequality are not the same thing.

JW: In a nutshell, discrimination means unequal treatment or neglect. It would apply if one group had been treated preferentially. Then you could say the others were discriminated against. But we had no preferences. What we did consider were the ground realities of Poland’s education system and cultural patterns that shape what people feel is possible for them. And in Poland, that burden falls especially on young women, who are often brought up according to a different set of values. As girls, we’re taught to be polite, to obey. Boys will be boys: they get a pass to mess around, to take risks. And that carries over into adult life, including our careers.

AG: Equality doesn’t always mean equal opportunity. Leveling the playing field requires special attention to the needs shaped by years of conforming to social and cultural norms. And often, forms of exclusion that aren’t necessarily written into law but affect people’s lives nonetheless. Going forward, we pledge to ensure that women not only get access, but also an actual encouragement to apply.

JW: Many of us in Zryw studied abroad, which makes the contrast all the more striking. I was in England, where class divides are the bigger issue. But after returning to Poland, I’ve spoken with countless young women who face a powerful mental barrier—they doubt their own abilities and potential. And yet, so often, they have far greater knowledge and social awareness than many of the men I meet who are already part of the state apparatus.

As a Foundation, we can’t overlook this—when we see inequality, we take it into account.

How did Zryw come about?

AG: It all started with sleeping on mattresses. The year was 2023, a parliamentary election year — time to rise to the challenge. A dozen or so of us came together to build a campaign for Parliament from scratch. We barely knew each other. For several months, our candidate’s apartment turned into a kind of “transfer station”: it began with five people, by the end, there were fifteen, and many more passed through along the way. That group of fifteen became the core on which we built Zryw. Because we discovered something important — not only could we survive living on top of each other in one small flat, but we could actually make things happen together.

JW: It all started through word of mouth. In ’23 we were acting on our own initiative, and the news spread: to friends, and then to friends of friends. Take me and Aga, for example. We only knew each other from afar, and only virtually. Back during Covid, we happened to organize student conferences at the same time. Every now and then, we’d catch a glimpse of each other on Zoom or on social media. Then the parliamentary election came.

AG: That’s right. I asked if I could join the campaign; I texted Julia on Instagram, I had seen her repost something relating to our candidate. The timing was right, the whole thing was only getting started. After the successful election campaign, we wanted to harness that energy and channel it toward something. We realized there was no point in waiting for a window of opportunity, and we had to open it ourselves. That’s why we created Zryw: to capture that national surge of energy, give it shape, and direct it where it’s needed most.

So, where is it needed most?

JW: Over the past two years, we’ve seen how much absurdity and inertia you run into when working in ministries. Take salaries, for example—some of them, quite frankly, make it impossible to live in the capital. 3,200 zł net? That’s an extreme case, but a real one. And many people in Zryw know this firsthand. They came back from abroad, wanting to work for the state, and were willing to accept those conditions because they had a vision. Some managed to endure, while others left—whether due to financial strain or a lack of room to grow.

AG: We believe that a qualitative generational shift in Poland’s public service is possible from within. For systemic change to take hold, you need to sow it in many places at once—because, in the end, the state needs capable people in both offices and the legislative process. But it’s also about showing that there are people worth making that change for.

We don’t want to open a showroom where all you can do is admire a luxury car from the outside. Zryw should be a garage, a place where you can actually get under the hood of your own car. We’ll give you the workshop, the tools, and access to great mechanics. And then it’s time to hit the road—with our support and community alongside you.

Who do you work with?

JW: Last year, we were the only organization from Poland accepted into the accelerator run by the Apolitical Foundation, which supports what they call political entrepreneurs. And despite the name, it’s not about businesspeople, but rather about those who create new models of civic and political engagement.

We’re also supported by, among others, the EFC Foundation, founded in memory of Roman Czernecki — a social innovator and educator. At Zryw, we believe that democracy requires not only institutions, but above all people: competent, empathetic and ready to act. In this sense, our mission and projects align deeply with EFC’s vision of building a strong democratic community.

AG: Among our allies is also the Mentors4Starters Foundation. From them, we’re learning how to build meaningful mentor–mentee relationships that truly benefit both sides. Maria Belka and Zofia Kłudka bring a wealth of practical knowledge and an equal willingness to share it with us.

How do you imagine the future of Zryw?

JW: Our mission is to find capable, driven people, encourage them either to stay in Poland or to come back, and equip them with the tools and knowledge they need to be effective in public service.

AG: While our zrywy [eng. surges]—the lowercase ones, meaning our short multi-day gatherings—are largely aimed at students who study in Poland and see their future here, we also see ourselves as a kind of “repatriation hub.” When you go abroad for your studies, you find countless networks and support systems that help you adapt to a new place. We believe Poland needs a similar network, but for those considering a return.

JW: Exactly. A Pole abroad is rarely alone. But a Pole returning after studies is a different story. For a long time, such a decision carried the stigma of disappointment or even failure. Nonsense! Poland is beautiful, innovative, and above all, it’s home. This is where we feel purpose, and this is where we see our future. And we want the privilege we had—finding each other in 2023, and being able to start working together—to be available to many more people. Because in the end, you need both something and someone to come back to. The flight home is just one plane ticket, but the decision to board it isn’t so simple. We want to show, in very concrete terms, that the return is worth it, and that it opens up incredible opportunities.