2022.04.08华沙市长解释他的城市如何应对人口增长17%的问题

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By Invitation | Russia and Ukraine
Warsaw’s mayor explains how his city is coping with a 17% increase in its population
Rafal Trzaskowski asks for more assistance to be sent directly to cities and charities helping Ukrainian refugees

Apr 8th 2022 (Updated Apr 8th 2022)


WE KNEW THE war was coming. But we did not expect it to become a full-scale conflict, displacing millions of people, in just a month. We did not anticipate so much tragedy and destruction. In our worst nightmares we did not expect to witness atrocities not seen in this part of Europe since the second world war.

Millions of people have fled Ukraine and 2.5m have arrived in Poland alone. We estimate that more than half a million refugees have passed through Warsaw, Poland’s capital. Another 300,000 have chosen to stay in the city and its suburbs. In just a month the population of Warsaw has increased by 17%. Poland has suddenly become the country with the second-largest refugee population in the world.


Our neighbours from Ukraine were welcomed with open hearts. The whole country has helped in the effort. Volunteers and charities streamed to the border to help people in need and the government opened reception centres. It announced that it would welcome every Ukrainian citizen in distress. After years of anti-refugee sentiment fuelled by the populist ruling party, Law and Justice–which I have countered as a member of the opposition coalition Civic Platform–we have all proved that we do indeed have solidarity in our national DNA even so.

The city of Warsaw opened information points and reception centres on the first day of the Russian invasion on February 24th. The central government has also opened its own reception centres in the city. We decided to organise the initial assistance at railway stations, providing our guests with information, food and medical help. Initially the vast majority of Ukrainian arrivals were taken care of by their families and friends. But ordinary people also opened their apartments to complete strangers. That is one reason why there are no visible groups of refugees on our streets, no pitched tents in the parks and no people living like nomads in camps.

The city also provides accommodation in our reception centres, municipal buildings, hotels and sport and youth centres. With the help of private companies we have retrofitted numerous office buildings so that they can serve as refugee centres. The Norwegian Refugee Council and WOSP, which collects money for medical equipment for kids and is one of the biggest charities in Poland, have built a state-of-the-art temporary transit shelter at the Warsaw East Railway Station.

As the war continues ever larger numbers of people are fleeing its bombs. They are increasingly traumatised, and need immediate psychological and medical assistance. They also need accommodation. Through the EU the Ukrainians have been granted temporary status akin to that of citizens in Poland and so enjoy free access to health care and education. Our hospitals and clinics are caring for thousands of patients. And there is a little hope amid the tragedy: 40 Ukrainian children have already been born in them.


Most of the administrative burdens associated with this care are being dealt with by local authorities. We are responsible for registering refugees, which includes assigning them identity and social security numbers, and for distributing government stipends to those hosting them. Warsaw is slowly becoming overwhelmed. Most of my social workers now focus on refugees, and most of my psychologists, who normally work with Polish kids, are helping traumatised youths coming from Ukraine. And of course I, as a mayor, have a duty to make sure that the city functions normally. No one wants the generosity of the people to be sapped by the inadequate quality of the city’s services.

It has to be clearly stated that most of what you see in Poland is improvisation. It is a bottom-up process driven mostly by a dense network of co-operation between volunteers, charities and local governments who shoulder most of the relief effort. We cannot go on in this way. Two weeks ago, at the peak of the crisis to date, 30,000 people a day were coming to Warsaw. I had to call mayors of other Polish and European cities to beg for assistance. My friends sent buses in the middle of the night to relocate people.

It’s high time we phased out improvisation and instead created a strategy for coping and appropriate systems for helping refugees. The latter will allow us not only to continue delivering assistance, but also will allow us to prepare for the coming months. To give you one example: in Warsaw we have already accepted more than 15,000 Ukrainian kids into our kindergartens and schools. But we know that there are 80,000 more of them waiting to enrol in the Polish education system. If they do so we will have to hire several thousand new teachers and build numerous kindergartens and schools. These are enormous costs that cities cannot bear alone. That is why it is best to create a two-tier system, whereby only certain kids, who understand a bit of Polish, immediately enter our system. The rest should start with remote learning on an Ukrainian educational platform. In addition they should be taught Polish after hours, so that they can be gradually introduced into our school system more successfully if they so choose.

What we need most is for the European and international relief agencies to create a permanent system of co-ordination for the refugee crisis. The Polish central government should make a prompt decision to sign a memorandum of understanding with the relevant UN agencies and it should ask the EU to show its solidarity through a voluntary refugee relocation scheme.

Finally, we need financial assistance that does not only go to the central government. The fact that Poland and Germany have just asked for a new system to be created through which the EU can grant €1,000 per refugee is a positive thing. But we also need funds to go directly to refugees, charities and local governments as they are at the forefront of the crisis. I have been fighting in the EU for such direct financial support for cities for years. We confront the greatest challenges of our time every day: fighting climate change, battling the pandemic or tackling the consequences of the most vicious military aggression in Europe in decades. The international community and the EU need to step up and help us out.


The Ukrainians are fighting not only for their freedom. They are fighting for our freedom, our values and the stability of transatlantic institutions as well. That is why we need to do our bit to help refugees. During the second world war, Hitler tried to wipe Warsaw from the European map. It was turned to rubble by the Nazis. Yet it rose to glory like a phoenix from the ashes. Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kherson and other Ukrainian cities have been sentenced to death by Vladimir Putin. Not many people in the world understand what that means better than us, what it means to fight, persevere and rebuild for the future. We need to help the Ukrainians fight and then rebuild their future. They cannot do it alone.

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Rafal Trzaskowski is the mayor of Warsaw and a member of the opposition coalition, Civic Platform.



应邀参加｜俄罗斯和乌克兰
华沙市长解释他的城市如何应对人口增长17%的问题
Rafal Trzaskowski要求将更多的援助直接发给帮助乌克兰难民的城市和慈善机构

2022年4月8日 (2022年4月8日更新)



我们知道战争即将来临。但我们没有想到它在短短一个月内就变成了一场全面的冲突，使数百万人流离失所。我们没有预料到会发生如此多的悲剧和破坏。在我们最糟糕的噩梦中，我们没有想到会看到自第二次世界大战以来在欧洲这一地区从未见过的暴行。

数百万人逃离了乌克兰，仅在波兰就有250万人抵达。我们估计，超过50万难民已经通过了波兰首都华沙。另有30万人选择留在该市及其郊区。仅仅在一个月内，华沙的人口就增加了17%。波兰突然成为世界上拥有第二大难民人口的国家。


我们来自乌克兰的邻居受到了张开双臂的欢迎。整个国家都在努力帮助。志愿者和慈善机构纷纷涌向边境，帮助有需要的人，政府也开设了接待中心。它宣布，它将欢迎每一个陷入困境的乌克兰公民。在民粹主义执政党 "法律与公正 "多年来助长的反难民情绪之后--我作为反对派联盟 "公民平台 "的成员对此进行了反击--我们都证明，即使如此，我们的民族基因中确实有团结的精神。

华沙市在2月24日俄罗斯入侵的第一天就开设了信息点和接待中心。中央政府也在该市开设了自己的接待中心。我们决定在火车站组织初步援助，为客人提供信息、食物和医疗帮助。起初，绝大多数乌克兰抵达者都由其家人和朋友照顾。但普通人也向完全陌生的人开放他们的公寓。这就是为什么我们的街道上没有明显的难民群体，公园里没有搭建的帐篷，也没有人像游牧民族一样生活在营地里的原因之一。

本市还在我们的接待中心、市政大楼、酒店以及体育和青年中心提供住宿。在私营公司的帮助下，我们对许多办公大楼进行了改造，使它们可以作为难民中心。挪威难民理事会和WOSP（为儿童医疗设备筹集资金，是波兰最大的慈善机构之一）在华沙东火车站建造了一个最先进的临时收容所。

随着战争的继续，越来越多的人在逃离战争的炸弹。他们的心理创伤越来越严重，需要立即得到心理和医疗援助。他们还需要住宿。通过欧盟，乌克兰人获得了类似于波兰公民的临时身份，因此可以免费获得医疗服务和教育。我们的医院和诊所正在为成千上万的病人提供护理。而且在悲剧中还有一点希望：已经有40名乌克兰儿童在这里出生。


与这种护理相关的大部分行政负担正由地方当局处理。我们负责登记难民，包括为他们分配身份和社会保障号码，并负责向收容他们的人发放政府津贴。华沙正慢慢变得不堪重负。我的大多数社会工作者现在都专注于难民，而我的大多数心理学家，通常为波兰的孩子工作，却在帮助来自乌克兰的受创伤的青年。当然，作为市长，我也有责任确保城市的正常运作。没有人希望人民的慷慨被城市服务质量的不足所消磨。

必须明确指出，你在波兰看到的大部分都是即兴创作。这是一个自下而上的过程，主要由志愿者、慈善机构和承担大部分救援工作的地方政府之间密集的合作网络推动。我们不能以这种方式继续下去。两周前，在迄今为止的危机高峰期，每天有30,000人来到华沙。我不得不给波兰和欧洲其他城市的市长打电话，恳求他们提供援助。我的朋友们在半夜里派大巴去安置人们。

现在是时候了，我们应该淘汰即兴创作，转而创建一个应对策略和帮助难民的适当系统。后者将使我们不仅能够继续提供援助，而且还能使我们为未来几个月的工作做好准备。举个例子：在华沙，我们已经接受了超过15000名乌克兰儿童进入我们的幼儿园和学校。但我们知道，还有8万多人在等待进入波兰的教育系统。如果他们这样做，我们将不得不雇用几千名新教师，并建造许多幼儿园和学校。这些都是巨大的成本，城市无法单独承担。这就是为什么最好的办法是建立一个两级系统，即只有某些懂一点波兰语的孩子可以立即进入我们的系统。其余的人应该从乌克兰教育平台上的远程学习开始。此外，他们应该在课余时间学习波兰语，这样，如果他们选择的话，就可以逐步更成功地进入我们的学校系统。

我们最需要的是欧洲和国际救援机构为难民危机建立一个永久性的协调系统。波兰中央政府应迅速做出决定，与联合国相关机构签署谅解备忘录，并应要求欧盟通过自愿的难民搬迁计划来显示其团结。

最后，我们需要财政援助，这种援助不仅仅是给中央政府的。波兰和德国刚刚要求建立一个新的系统，通过这个系统，欧盟可以为每个难民提供1000欧元，这是一个积极的事情。但我们也需要资金直接流向难民、慈善机构和地方政府，因为他们处于危机的最前沿。多年来，我一直在欧盟争取对城市的这种直接财政支持。我们每天都面临着我们这个时代最大的挑战：与气候变化作斗争，与大流行病作斗争，或者处理欧洲几十年来最恶毒的军事侵略的后果。国际社会和欧盟需要站出来，帮助我们。


乌克兰人不仅在为他们的自由而战。他们也在为我们的自由、我们的价值观和跨大西洋机构的稳定而战。这就是为什么我们需要为帮助难民尽一份力。在第二次世界大战期间，希特勒试图将华沙从欧洲地图上抹去。它被纳粹变成了废墟。然而，它却像一只凤凰一样从灰烬中升起，重获荣耀。哈尔科夫、马里乌波尔、赫尔松和其他乌克兰城市都被弗拉基米尔-普京判了死刑。世界上没有多少人比我们更了解这意味着什么，意味着战斗、坚持和为未来重建。我们需要帮助乌克兰人战斗，然后重建他们的未来。他们无法独自做到这一点。

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Rafal Trzaskowski是华沙市长，也是反对派联盟公民平台的成员。