Polish Nationalists Weaponize History in Bid to Remain Relevant

Yet what otherwise might be seen as signs of the nation's extraordinary generosity, for Dariusz Ziemba they are misbegotten examples of help.

"They are allowed to use public transportation for free, while my kids have to pay for tickets. Why is it so?," ask Ziemba, 41, sitting in the kitchen on the first floor of the tenement that he co-owns in southern Lodz.

A member of the far-right National Movement, which traces its roots back to radical nationalist groups active in the interwar period, Ziemba is vocal about his dissatisfaction with, as he calls it, "discrimination of the Poles".

"I'm not saying that we should put them in camps…," he claims. "But with a state budget indebted by COVID-19, we've been pumping public funds into humanitarian aid and giving all the rights to all the Ukrainians without verification who is a refugee and who is not… We accept foreigners with their traditions and treat them as more important than our own."

These sentiments, although not always expressed in such an explicit way, are not that rare.

Participants carry the several-hundred-meter-long Ukrainian flag during the march under the slogan 'Stop the War!' on Freedom Square in Lodz, Poland, 04 March 2022. EPA-EFE/GRZEGORZ MICHALOWSKI Money, sympathy dry up

Over a hundred days into Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, with no end to the war in sight, resources and private shelters stretching thinner, and galloping inflation and energy bills, "the Polish people's widespread enthusiasm for helping is drying up," admits Rafal Kowalczyk, a historian at the University of Lodz.

The initial mobilisation of the nation animated by volunteers and non-government groups received international acclaim. Ordinary citizens,...