‘We love everything now’: queuing for food at Poland’s biggest shelter

One bus after another passes in front. Tens of thousands of refugees are helped to cross the Ukrainian-Polish border here every day and then taken elsewhere in Europe. A man with a megaphone calls the destinations – Krakow, Warsaw, Paris, Berlin. Polish firefighters and police, with volunteers, are trying to deal with the chaos.

“We can take you to Belgium”, says a volunteer to a Ukrainian woman with her children. “Belgium? Where is it?” asks the woman. “Apart from Germany and the Netherlands”, replies the volunteer.

Hundreds of folding beds

An emergency shelter has been set up in a gigantic warehouse near the border town of Korczowa – the largest in Poland. The country has taken in more than a million refugees in just two weeks. Inside, the extent of the crisis becomes clearer: hundreds of folding beds, most of them occupied, are lined up against each other in the room. Children play, some refugees take a nap and warm themselves under thick blankets. At a counter, volunteers register where people want to go.

Outside the shed is a row of food stalls: meat sandwiches, soup, ramen, dumplings. Volunteers came from all over Europe to feed the refugees. This also applies to Niek Brouwer from Genemuiden, who unloads vans with a new load of Dutch snacks with his team. “6,000 hamburgers, 6,000 meatballs and 1,300 kilos of fries. But it will be gone in no time,” he said.

They had already brought pea soup with them, but it is still not finished: