Navigating through the crush of tourists in the historic center of the southern Polish city of Kraków, I eventually came to the Tempel Synagogue, which marks the entrance to Kazimierz, the old Jewish Quarter. A long line of Ukrainian refugees stood quietly at the gate, waiting for the free food distributed every day by volunteers from the Jewish Community Center.

Over the centuries, most European countries have suffered invasions, contractions and expansions. But Poland’s modern history has been particularly unsettled and bloody: It was frequently occupied, with chunks of territory amputated and its very existence expunged for 130 years when neighbors annexed it in the 18th century. Poland regained state-hood after World War I, only to be brutally invaded by the Nazis and the Soviets in 1939.

The Nazis exterminated three million Polish Jews – 10 percent of the country’s population – during their occupation, and another three million Poles, mostly civilians, were slaughtered by the Germans and the Russians. Finally, in 1989, after labor activist Lech Wałęsa of the Solidarity movement won Poland’s first-ever free election, the nation liberated itself from 40 years of Soviet subjugation and regained its sovereignty.

Groundhog Day?

But Poland is a nation with nary a dull moment. When Russia attacked Ukraine in February of 2022, 1.5 million Ukrainians sought refuge across the border. Once again Poland found itself a pawn in a geopolitical conflict. And it’s not just a matter of refugees like the ones standing in line by the synagogue. Missiles have landed inside Polish territory, helicopters from neighboring Belarus (a Russian vassal state at this point) have crossed its border, and while I was there at the end of March, a Russian cruise missile flew over Polish territory on its way to the Ukrainian city of Lviv.

“What is most worrying now is that literally any scenario is possible,” lamented Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “We have not had a situation like this since 1945.”

Tusk had served as prime minister from 2007 to 2014, after which he was recruited to head the EU’s ruling body, the European Council. He became prime minister again in 2023, winning 54 percent of the vote under the banner of the mostly centrist Civic Coalition, and thereby defeating the right-wing populist Law and Justice Party (PiS), whose hardline on abortion and concerted efforts to destroy Poland’s independent judiciary lost it considerable support.

Soup kitchen near the Ukrainian border in Przemysil, Poland.

Is This Sustainable?

Sitting in the yard between the synagogue and the Jewish Center, I asked Rabbi Avi Baumol, a stocky man in his 40s with a strong accent from his native New York, why they had taken on the task of feeding Ukrainian refugees. “We Jews know what it is like to be displaced,” he replied. “So, in the first week of the war in Ukraine we opened our doors... and since that moment we’ve helped 300,000 Ukrainian refugees.”

Baumol came to Kraków in 2013 to aid in reviving the tiny Jewish community in Poland. “There were 60,000 Jews in Kraków before the Holocaust,” he said. “Today there are a few thousand left at most, but things have changed. To be sure, some antisemitism still exists in Poland, though on a much smaller scale than in years past and certainly on a smaller scale than in some Western European countries.”

While we spoke, the flow of Ukrainians coming for relief packages never ebbed. The volunteers in charge were a mixed lot from Spain, the U.S., Poland and Ukraine, including 94-year-old Bernard Offen, a Kraków native who survived various concentration camps (including Auschwitz), emigrated to the U.S., served in the Korean War and returned to Kraków for the first time in 1981. “I needed to confront my demons,” he said as he assembled plastic bags of cereal. “Now I’m just trying to help these folks who are in need.”

Victoria is a 37-year-old single mother who’s now an employee of the Jewish Community Center. She arrived in Poland two years ago from Kharkiv (Ukraine’s second largest city), which has lately been under constant bombardment by Russia. “When the war started, I was in deep shock and I didn’t think I should leave,” she told me. “Then I saw the Bucha massacre (the Kyiv suburb where over 400 civilians were murdered by Russian troops) and decided I needed to save my daughter above all.”

“For me it was really hard to think how I was going to manage,” she said about leaving Ukraine. “I had never traveled outside of my region. But I was met by volunteers who took us out of Ukraine. Then my friend put me in touch with the JCC. I was in shock at how much help I got.”

She pointed to the Ukrainians at the gate. “I was in the same line a year ago,” she said. “I understand completely what they are thinking ... they are not at all OK.”

U.S. Air Force Black Hawk landing at RzeszÓw-Jasionka Airport.

She said that she’s adjusting in her new life in Poland, but it’s taken time, along with a decision to not think about whether she’ll ever go back to Ukraine. She worries about her mother, who lives in Kharkiv and with whom she talks almost daily. “She doesn’t want me to tell her to come here. She lives in her own reality, like all the people of Kharkiv, it’s the only way for them to survive.”

Later that day I dropped by the offices of the College of Eastern Europe, a Polish-based NGO think tank run by Adam and Iwona Reichardt.

“When the war started and Poles welcomed the Ukrainians warmly, I was not surprised based on this previous research,” Iwona said, referring to the numerous studies done by their NGO. “But one thing that was alarming was that Poles perceived the Ukrainians as being temporary immigrants.”

“The drop in social support that we’re seeing is when Poles started realizing that the Ukrainians would stay here for longer,” Iwona said. “And it’s not even about jobs, because we have more jobs than people willing to do them. It’s about public services, it’s about health care, it’s about waiting in lines.”

According to Adam, much of this zero-sum-game thinking is exaggerated. “The assumption is that Ukrainians get pushed to the front of the line for social services, which is generally not the case,” he said. “But this is exploited by Russian propaganda, and it’s had an effect.”

That evening, at dinner with friends, our hostess, Lucyna, a spritely woman in her 70s who was active in the Solidarity liberation movement, took out her albums of memorabilia from her time distributing pro-Solidarity fliers while evading the police. They described the greyness that had pervaded daily life and how, with the fall of communism, more products appeared with more colorful packaging. Her friend, a professor of physics at the Jagiellonian University of Kraków (founded in 1364), recalled his childhood under the communist regime. “One day I came home from elementary school crying and when my mother asked me what had happened, I told her ‘Stalin died!’” he said, laughing. “My poor mother couldn’t believe it.”

His parents, like many Poles, were silent opponents of the government. In this regard, Poland was different from other Eastern bloc countries, he said. “The attempts to brainwash us didn’t really work. ... And we managed to maintain a certain amount of intellectual independence. In the entire physics department, 30 or so people, only one was a member of the communist party.”

A Killing Machine and A Factory

The following day I drove west for an hour to the town of Oświęcim, best known as the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps. Arriving by car, I was struck by the incongruity of men waving signs to lure you over for parking, as if they were trying to rent private driveway space for a sold-out Dodgers game. When I finally found the official parking lot, it was filled with tour buses and crowds of people, many of them high school students. The snack bar at the entrance looked like it belonged to a theme park.

Once inside the camp, you’re grouped by language and follow a guide who speaks to you through a wireless headphone that, in the case of our group, only functioned intermittently. We were marched through a series of buildings, passing by the throngs of school-aged kids, many of whom seemed to be talking of soccer or school. Eventually, however, the sheer horror of what happened, the unfathomable inhumanity of the German guards drowns out the background noise. It’s almost a relief to exit the camp and be shown the trellis from which Rudolf Höss, the longest reigning camp commandant, was hanged in 1947 near one of the crematoriums – and right in front of the villa where he had lived with his family.

Auschwitz concentration camp.

Remnants of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

The full immensity of the horror is ironically most apparent in Auschwitz II, known as Birkenau, where the barracks were razed, leaving only chimneys, like tombstones, for as far as the eye can see. Each barracks, originally built for less than 100 people, had up to 1,000 prisoners stacked inside, held there until the killing system – gas chambers and the ovens – could reduce them to ashes and dental gold. Around 100,000 prisoners awaited their fate in Birkenau at any one time. It’s estimated 1.1 million were killed, the vast majority of them Jews.

What’s In a Name?

Auschwitz’s location in Oświęcim was tied to the German chemical company IG Farben’s need for cheap labor in their wartime rubber factory. The first prisoners used were Poles and Russians, but eventually the bulk of the labor came from Polish Jews and then Jews from the rest of Europe. Today, a mostly new factory belonging to the Polish petrochemical company Synthos stands in place of the old one.

The company spokesperson, sensing that I was also going to be visiting Auschwitz, seemed determined not to let me visit the Synthos factory, even though the company has no relation to IG Farben other than location. But after driving around and seeing the remnants of old bunk houses and guard stations, I found a road that led straight into the heart of the giant factory complex, where traces of a few original IG Farben buildings and overhead piping remain.

Synthos is actually a positive example of the incredible growth experienced by the Polish economy since the fall of communism. Before being asked to leave by a security guard, I spoke to some employees who told me that Synthos had been expanding for years, and that despite a recent slowdown, hiring had picked up again. The Synthos Group manufactures chemicals in Poland and the Czech Republic, with 2,000 employees in Oświęcim and another 1,500 in other subsidiaries that produce plastics, packing materials, pesticides and fertilizers, among other products. Some 40 percent of Poland’s GDP depends on industry, among the highest proportion in Europe and a reflection of both Polish enterprise and relatively low labor costs.

The AGROUnia farmers group protesting depressed agricultural prices near KrakÓw.

The Polish economy has grown by some 30 percent over the last decade, far outpacing most of Europe. The last couple of years, however, have been challenging, with inflation topping 6 percent in late 2023 and growth slowing to a crawl. Living standards remain well below those of Western Europe. The budget deficit, which is currently at 2.5 percent of GDP, is set to rise to 4.5 percent to pay for the election promises made by Tusk. But the long-term picture is bright: If growth continues to rise at the average pace of the last quarter century, Poland’s GDP per capita will catch up with the industrialized West by 2035.

Stresses Revealed

Leaving Oświęcim, I took the road that follows the Vistula River, which runs south to north and is the vertebral column of Poland that connects three of its major cities: Kraków, Warsaw and Gdańsk. In a matter of minutes, I’m in the hamlet of Las, surrounded by farmland.

A farmer has just parked his tractor next to a freshly plowed field. His name is Stanisław. He’s 61 years old and speaks almost no English. But when I mention Ukraine, he takes out his wallet and signs that it’s empty. He’s obviously quite upset. In no time we’re joined by his son, Andrzej, who like most young Poles, speaks excellent English.

“My father says he has no problem with Ukrainians coming to Poland to escape the war,” he said. “But letting their grains in without tariffs isn’t fair. Prices have dropped so much we just can’t make a living farming.” (More about that below.)

Stanisław pointed to a small garage with a sign on it. “He’s showing you our auto repair shop. We have to work as mechanics to make money,” Andrzej said. “He’d rather farm, but he needs to put food on the table. ... I can tell you he’s a better farmer than a mechanic.” The son laughed, but then translated for the father who nodded in agreement.

As I drove back toward Kraków, I passed by a caravan of tractors protesting the flood of Ukrainian grain in Polish markets – collateral damage from the war. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 included the blockade of its Black Sea export routes. In response, the EU lifted tariffs on Ukrainian grain and facilitated the passage of Ukrainian goods by over-land rail.

U.S. military delivers equipment to RzeszÓw-Jasionka Airport on the way to Ukraine.

But prices dropped as Ukrainian wheat previously ending up in Africa and Asia entered local markets. Calling it unfair competition, Polish farmers began to protest in November of 2023. The Polish government responded by backtracking, prohibiting the import and transit of Ukrainian grains. But the protests continued, with some protestors becoming violent and others blocking major roadways all over Poland, including border crossings with Ukraine.

This particular conflict isn’t just about Ukraine. As in much of the rest of the EU, farmers are also protesting the EU’s Green Deal, which is meant to make agriculture more sustainable by reducing energy consumption along with the use of pesticides nd herbicides. And despite receiving substantial subsidies from the EU, many farmers bridle at what they consider burdensome regulations that eat away at already-thin margins.

Before returning to office, Tusk had criticized the right-wing government’s handling of the protests, accusing the leadership of selling out to the protestors for the sake of rural votes. “This situation with Ukrainian grain... shows, as if through a lens, the whole method of governing, and basically the prostitution that we are dealing with in Poland,” he said at the time.

But once on the inside, he changed his tune. “The saddest moments in my political career are when I have to be tough and harsh with our Ukrainian friends,” he said after deciding to leave the restrictions in place. “As Polish prime minister, I am supposed to protect Poland’s fundamental interests.”

Europe, Militarizing

These days, because of the war in Ukraine, Poland’s fundamental interests are inextricably tied to the U.S. and NATO. Nowhere is this more evident than Rzeszów, a city just 45 miles from the Ukrainian border, whose airport has become the main hub through which military and humanitarian aid are shipped to Ukraine. While I was there, an American C-17 transport plane taxied and took off on a runway that was protected by at least a dozen antiaircraft batteries, all pointing east toward Ukraine and Russia.

A group of Polish officers smoked cigarettes outside one of the terminal’s side entrances. I asked them if they were worried about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Worried?” one of them replied. “No, we are prepared.”

But the Russians seem to be on the offensive, I said. Could they become a problem for Poland? “The Russians are and have always been a problem. But we are ready.”

When I asked whether he was concerned about the U.S. Republican Party’s obstruction of military aid to Ukraine and Trump’s threats to pull out of NATO, he rolled his eyes, crushed his cigarette underfoot and walked away. Regardless of what happens in the U.S., Poland is already ramping up its defense spending, which is expected to reach over 4 percent of GDP this year, double the minimum national commitment agreed by NATO. Poland is planning to increase its land force to over 300,000 soldiers, and it’s going on a spending spree that includes buying hundreds of Abrams tanks and advanced F-35 fighters.

As I drove through Rzeszów, it was evident the city has enjoyed an economic boom because of its newfound position as a logistics hub. New car dealerships and fresh construction projects are everywhere. Patrons at the Merkury Market, a Polish version of Home Depot, told me that there was so much building going on since the war started that check-out lines at Merkury were always long.

Pizzeria Gusto, a few miles from the airport, serves “Spicy Joe” pie, named after President Biden, who was pictured eating their pizza while visiting American servicemen stationed nearby in 2022. On the day I visited, groups of American defense contractors and servicemen occupied a number of tables. A couple of corps members from the U.S. Air Force commented that things had slowed down considerably at the airport since the U.S. aid had slowed, but they were confident it would pick up again.

Forest Secrets

The following day I drove north to the Białowieża National Park on the Poland-Belarus border, a pristine primeval forest that’s the last of its kind in Europe. It’s an area of stark contrasts, a virgin forest inhabited by bison and wolves, but with a bloody history of invasions by Germans and Soviets. During World War II, the Nazis killed thousands of Polish civilians and Jews here, away from prying eyes. Their wooden grave markers are still to be found deep in the forest.

Over the past few years, Białowieża forest has been the site of another ongoing tragedy, this time featuring immigrants from the Middle East and Africa who were being used as pawns by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin toady, to stir trouble for EU countries. In 2021 they were lured to Belarus with the promise of being allowed to cross into Poland, and once there, to easily move to other EU countries.

But the Belarusians simply dumped them in the forest near the Polish border with no food and water. And the Poles pushed them back into Belarus. Many died of exposure. In 2022, Poland constructed a wall 116 miles long along the border. Nevertheless, Polish authorities reported more than 30,000 attempted crossings in 2023. No less than 50 refugees died in the attempt.

Luca, a young Italian researcher at the Białowieża Geobotanical Station, accompanied me to the most restricted part of the forest. At the entrance, we ran into a park ranger, and I asked him if he had run into immigrants. He gave a sharp no and turned away. Apparently, the Polish government, which had been blamed by human rights organizations for multiple violations by turning immigrants back to Belarus, still officially prefers to deny that crossings continue.

The following day, we rode on horseback for hours in the forests that border the wall, which is more of a very tall fence dotted with infrared cameras and movement sensors. Concertina wire is coiled along the top, and bored soldiers can be found every few miles. Nevertheless, as one of the Polish researchers at the station told me later: “I have found immigrants in the forest. Some of our employees have found dead bodies. They go over the wall, they go under it, or they try in the bogs, where they drown.”

That evening, Sławomir Dron, the outspoken owner of the best restaurant in Białowieża, which also functions as a meeting hall, told me that he considered the treatment of immigrants by the authorities abysmal. “The previous government tried to deny anything was wrong,” he said. “And when the press started to tell the world what was going on, they prevented journalists from covering it. For the moment, I don’t see that Tusk is doing much better. The people of the town are the ones who really helped these poor immigrants.”

Sławomir Dron, owner of the best restaurant in BiałowieŻa.

One refugee who benefited from the villagers’ hospitality was working in Dron’s restaurant. Ruth was 17 years old when she traveled from her native Congo to Turkey, then on to Belarus where she had been promised easy transit into Poland. “They completely lied to us,” she said. “Once we got to the Polish border, they just left us. For a week we had nothing to eat. We tried to go across, but each time the Polish police pushed us back. Then we tried at night.”

She sought refuge in the first house she came to. The villagers took her to the hospital since she was plainly starving and dehydrated. Eventually she was placed in an orphanage and sent to school. Now, she said, she works weekends in the restaurant and is completing high school during the week.

* * *

On my last day in Poland, I spent time in Warsaw. It was razed by German bombs in World War II, so today the city is a mixture of postwar modernism and reconstructions of prewar buildings, with a smattering of bland, Soviet-style apartment blocks. In one of the hip cafes in the rebuilt old town, I ran into three students from Warsaw University. The war in Ukraine was something they kept an eye on, but it wasn’t causing them to lose sleep. “The idea of war for many young people in Poland is more like science fiction,” said Gabriela, a 23-year-old psychology student from Przemyśl, just a few miles from the Ukrainian border. “I can imagine it, but not very easily.”

She looked more optimistically at the future, a marked difference from many young Americans and Western Europeans. I asked her why. “Because of our geographical position for our entire history, we’ve been a very fragile object of invasions and other aggressions,” she said. “We still feel this. But we also feel we have moved on, that Poland has changed.”