This Polish-German Border Community Still Believes In The European Miracle – LONG READ

Prime Minister Donald Tusk introduced controls on the Polish-German border in July, in an attempt to outgamble the Polish far-right. Three months on and the right continues to stoke anti-immigration pressure, with more protests expected this month, while Warsaw extends controls until April.

Yet, a week spent on the border revealed a twin city where many want to work together, as well as a type of politics that is missing in the battle over immigration – and so the battle to preserve the heart of Europe.

A winding line of traffic starts well before the bridge itself. Cars honk and lorry drivers stare out of their windows in frustration. The root of the delay is a group of armed border guards at the other end of the bridge, flanked by police vans and dressed either in full camouflage, or high-viz jackets and red berets. They watch hawkishly, peering through vehicle windows and questioning drivers intensely.

Such are the new controls on the Polish side of the Polish-German border. They were introduced in July, in response to domestic concern about checks first set up on the German side in October 2023, as Germany opted increasingly to return illegal migrants to Poland. They reflect Donald Tusk’s attempt to outgamble the Polish far-right, which has stoked domestic concern, taking on board their policies in hopes this will snuff out their momentum.

I arrive on Monday 7 July 2025, the day on which these controls were first put in place. The bridge in question connects the German town of Frankfurt an der Oder and the Polish town of Słubice across the River Oder, which today denotes the border between the two countries.

European Union flags that have adorned the bridge for 20 years are now accompanied by posters declaring ‘No Immigration!’, in both Polish and English. A bridge that was once seen as a sign of hope and post-war European unity between former enemies has become an emblem of the way borders are being shut and states retreating into themselves.

Both towns are relatively small, and it took three trains and a bus to make the 50 mile journey east from Berlin. Yet, this so-called twin city holds immense significance, as a key transit route between Poland and Germany, and as a long-standing symbol of the European story, where cooperation could grow to transcend borders. It is now also afflicted by the immigration-based political turmoil that manifests itself in various ways around the world.

Standing resolutely behind the ‘No Immigration!’ posters and closely watching the border guards is a member of the Border Defence Movement (‘Ruch Obrony Granic,’ ROG), a right-wing organisation that summons citizens’ patrols to block perceived illegal immigration from Germany into Poland.

The ROG member has no official capacity. He’s wearing a high-viz jacket over an AC-DC t-shirt, shorts and Adidas sliders. Nevertheless, he praises the new controls, complaining only that they were not introduced three years ago when Germany first started their checks.

The firebrand, far-right leader who set up the ROG, Robert Bąkiewicz, later tells me that they are protecting Poles from Germany’s ‘policy of expansion’ over Poland.

Marzena Słodownik, the Mayor of Słubice, introduces herself to me as the leader of a town in ‘the heart of Europe’. She speaks fondly about her grandmother who, working on the German side, would bring home novelties like oranges and bananas when she was a child.

Słodownik also recalls how international attention turned to this bridge on 1 May 2004, when the twin city celebrated Poland’s entry into the European Union. The Polish Foreign Minister at the time, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, declared joyfully that ‘I don’t believe this is happening’.

‘I don’t believe this is happening,’ says Słodownik. ‘I cannot imagine us going back to the times when there were border controls, when the Schengen area ceases to exist.’

Collaboration in a Place of Division

As I cross for the first time from the German side into Słubice, I immediately notice signs for hair salons and tobacco stores. Neon advertisements line the riverside, inviting passersby to venture into the many shops packed into and below the street. Most of these are stacked high with cigarette packs, and costs are clearly labelled in both Polish zlotys and euros.

Inhabitants of Frankfurt have long crossed into Słubice in search of lower prices, fueling the smaller, poorer Polish town’s growth. Such mutual development was a staple of the European story, but this has changed since random checks were introduced on the German side. One shop keeper tells me that ‘traffic is terrible’, another that ‘trade is smaller’, and another that ‘the Germans at the moment are afraid of driving here. Well, it’s a tragedy’.

Now, businesses fear more thorough border controls on the Polish side will reduce growth even further. ROG members patrol the bridge in what they say is the defence of Polish territory, but they look more like a cosplay version of border guards – while local communities suffer.

Tucked behind a tobacco store and up a flight of stairs is Lila’s Flower Shop. The store is filled to the brim with colourful bouquets, but Lila Syrek-Jermakowicz herself looks dejected. ‘Customers know there are traffic jams, so no one wants to come here’, she tells me, adding that she is ‘100% sure’ that trade has dropped at least by half because of controls. ‘I’m considering closing down,’ she admits, ‘after running my flower business for 40 years.’

A similar atmosphere is apparent at the Słubice Polenmarkt. This sprawling bazaar on the other side of town is made up of rows and rows of stalls, selling everything from fresh cheeses and hams, to kids’ games and clothing. It’s a kaleidoscope of colours and smells, yet empty stalls here and there reveal a darker decline.

’30 years ago, when border markets started to open, I could earn more money than I would earn in a normal workplace’, explains Marzenna Januszkiewicz, a seamstress at the Polenmarkt. As she greets me, she looks up from her well-used sewing machine with a smile, surrounded by silky frocks and dresses hanging from the roof of her stall. ‘But we’ve had a bad situation for two years because of the queues, the traffic jams. It has nothing to do with the prices, because they have been the same for 10 years.’

Agnieszka Zdziabek-Bollmann and her husband moved to Frankfurt in 2000, after searching for a place where they could feel at home as a Polish-German couple. She now runs a Polish-German management consultancy, and tells me happily that they have managed to create their ‘own little ecosphere, part of a shared Europe and a shared urban space’. Zdziabek-Bollmann works in both languages and has customers on both sides of the border.

Nonetheless, she says ‘the greatest satisfaction was simply walking across the bridge – to go to the other side, buy Polish bread without standing in line, come back and not have to tell anyone why.’ She tells me that ‘the controls since Monday mean that 20 years after [Poland’s EU entry] I am faced by the same obstacles as before.’

Zdziabek-Bollmann established her consultancy when a greater number of Poles started to work in Germany, observing that these first companies struggled to understand their German counterparts. Today, she tells me, cooperation will once again be more difficult – and not just in Frankfurt and Słubice. The companies she deals with have 4,000 cars in transport on most days, for example, and they are likely to all get stuck in traffic on the highways along the border. Shortages and delays will affect the automobile industries in both countries.

In fact, nearly 30,000 people cross the bridge between Słubice and Frankfurt every day, according to the Frankfurt-Słubice Cooperation Centre, which is run by Zdziabek-Bollmann’s husband, Sören Bollmann. Around 50,000 cross over from the larger Lubusz voivodeship in western Poland into the Brandenburg region of eastern Germany.

The week I arrived marked not only the start of new border controls, but also the Hanseatic City Festival (‘Miejskie Święto Hanzy’) – an annual celebration of areas like Słubice and Frankfurt, which in Medieval times belonged to the Hanseatic League of merchants and trading cities. These supported each other economically much like this twin city does today.

The first event is a marathon across the bridge, for which the new controls are temporarily stopped. Hundreds of locals from both sides of the river assemble to cheer on friends and family, both young and old, despite increasing rainfall. Commentators shout into megaphones in both Polish and German, while spectators are offered a hearty combination of German beer and Polish herring.

Tomasz Pilarski, head of Frankfurt’s marketing, tourism and events team, tells me that a lot of activities are created deliberately to develop ‘a cross border character’.

‘I was born here and I’m really engaged in this idea of creating a common society on the border,’ Pilarski continues, so ‘[the new controls] hurt me personally. It feels like we are punished for trying to grow closer together.’ He points to the Hanseatic City Festival and all the companies and suppliers who are now worried they won’t make the journey in time.

Nevertheless, Pilarski hopes Frankfurt and Słubice will ‘grow more and more together’. He says that the people are ‘quite resilient’, having already faced challenges like complete border closure during the pandemic, and have ‘more and more appreciation for cross-border activities’. ‘Who would have thought 20 years ago that we could enjoy a festival with both Polish and German headliners?’.

As the final runners cross the finish line and I start to leave the mass of spectators, I stumble upon Claus Junghanns, the Mayor of Frankfurt, half-way through a Bratwurst. He only has a few seconds – and manages to hand the Bratwurst to his wife before I can take a picture – but he points to the runners and tells me proudly: ‘This is what Europe can do’.

‘Some people live on the Polish side and work on the German side, or vice versa. Children also study on both sides of the Oder. We even have common cultural and sporting goals’, Mayor Marzena Słodownik tells me. ‘This is why I think [controls are] bad, because we’ll have chaos here.’

I came to find division along the Polish-German border, prompted by new controls and talk of the citizens’ patrols. Instead, I found two towns with a real drive to work together.

The ‘True Miracle’ of the European Story

When Agnieszka Zdziabek-Bollmann first arrived in Frankfurt at the turn of the century, almost no one spoke both Polish and German. It is only through the hard work and vision of a few pioneers, she stresses, that so much cooperation has developed – across a border that was once seen by Germans as ‘the edge of Europe’.

One of these pioneers was Dr Krzysztof Wojciechowski. I met him in his Frankfurt home, replete with books, paintings and antiques from around the world. As he talks he leans back, his eyes close and powerful stories flow one after another.

‘When I was four years old, my friends in kindergarten would say, ‘What do you want to be? A firefighter, a policeman, a bricklayer, a doctor?’. I’d say I want to be a traveler. That always fascinated me, seeing other people, a different world,’ he says.

Wojciechowski recalls hitchhiking around the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1972, at the age of 15. Visa-free travel had been introduced between Poland and its eastern neighbour for the first time since the Second World War. Over the following decade, more than a million young people from either side would holiday across the border.

Later, as a student, he hitchhiked between northern Greece and Yugoslavia and met a German travelling in the famous ‘Duck’ Citroen 2CV. This broke down in the middle of the night, he says, but his new friend promptly took his belt, tied it to the engine and kept driving.

The following years were ‘schizophrenic’ in terms of Polish-German relations, Wojciechowski summarises. Despite the idyllic opening of the 1970s, tensions had been steadily growing and reached boiling point when the anti-communist Solidarity (‘Solidarność’) movement arose in Poland around 1980.

The border only opened again in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but mistrust remained on both sides. Wojciechowski recalls infamous situations where German customs officers would cut up tennis balls and squeeze out toothpaste to make sure Poles weren’t smuggling goods across the border.

By this point, however, a brutal transformation had started in Poland and a very strong drive towards Europeanisation was born. Germany, too, wanted to be ambassadors for Poland in their accession, as a way to ‘equalise historical wrongs against the Poles’, Wojciechowski says. Over the following thirty years, he continues, ‘a true miracle occurred’.

‘We dreamed of overcoming this boundary in both the physical and mental sense between Poles and Germans,’ he tells me, ‘so that a Pole would no longer think that every German was a murderer and a fascist, and so that a German would no longer think that every Pole was a scumbag and a thief.’

The idea was born to create a Polish branch of the Frankfurt-based Viadrina European University, called Collegium Polonicum. Wojciechowski became long-time director and a ‘beautiful, modern university’ was eventually unveiled in Słubice in 1998, less than 100 metres from the border. It was the physical product of a time when ‘people first started talking positively about either side’, Wojciechowski says.

Dr Norbert Cyrus, a leading anthropologist and researcher at the Viadrina University’s B/ORDERS IN MOTION programme, says that what is usually referred to as the Polish-German border has really included several different entities ‘dissolving and reemerging’ over time. At this point, however, the border was established in its fullest sense as ‘a boundary that is collectively binding’.

This transition was aided by many Polish-German projects. Piotr Firfas was a teenager when given the rare opportunity to join one of the first Polish-German schools. ‘It was a breakthrough moment in my life’, he tells me, having since gone on to work for Euroregion, the transnational organisation who coordinated the project.

Today, Euroregion continues to ‘create a Euroregional identity’ along the entire Polish-German border, Firfas says, bringing together Polish and German administrations, organising opportunities for inhabitants to learn their neighbour’s language, share information and more.

In his own way the most visionary of the pioneers was Michael Kurzwelly, a visual artist from Germany who back in the 1990s began his ‘Słubfurt’ project. Kurzwelly tells me that he had wanted to ‘play a little bit with the question of identity’ after raising children who were Polish and German, and found in Słubice and Frankfurt the perfect place to do so.

After the Second World War ended, Poland’s borders were shifted west to align with the River Oder. People living in what was once eastern Poland (now annexed by the Soviet Union) migrated across the country to what was previously eastern Germany. Before the war, however, Słubice and Frankfurt had been part of one German city called Dammvorstadt – and Kurzwelly questioned why they couldn’t now become one Polish-German city.

With a mixture of pride and childish glee, Kurzwelly shows me the crest of Słubfurt, depicting a chicken perched on an egg against a blue background – in reference to ‘the primary philosophical question of what came first’. Excitedly, he unrolls a map of Słubfurt where the streetnames have been changed to Polish-German neologisms. We’re speaking, he reveals, at the round table of Słubfurt’s ‘parliament’, which gathers every Wednesday.

Kurzwelly adds that Słubfurt has also become home to hundreds of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan and several other countries, able to meet freely in a sports hall that Kurzwelly rents. ‘So long as you believe you are in Słubfurt, you can live here’, Kurzwelly says, ‘just as national states start with an idea.’

Initially the Słubfurt project was criticised, with allegations that this was another German attempt to ‘take over Poland’ – until, Kurzwelly says with a grin, people started to understand his humour. Today, ‘our border regions are the avant-garde of Europe,’ he adds, ‘because people feel like they live in one common area.’

All of this, Wojciechowski concludes, is ‘a true miracle’. He marvels at the economic transformation of Słubice, which he says was once a ‘dirty, ugly, small town, full of shady characters’. He also cites a 2010 study which found that over 70% of German parents would now accept their child marrying a Pole. In 1991, this figure was just 5% – and 3% among Polish parents asked the reverse question.

Not Everyone Sees Eye to Eye

After introducing new controls at the Polish-German border, Prime Minister Donald Tusk stressed that right-wing citizens’ patrols were hindering the work of border guards. In contrast, opposition-backed President Karol Nawrocki thanked the Border Defence Movement (ROG) for completing their ‘civic duty’.

‘We are normal citizens’, an ROG member tells me, ‘but we keep an eye on the authorities because they are trying to evade us.’ He stands upright as I speak to him, arms behind his back, but with sunglasses on, so I can’t look into his eyes. ‘We have no right to approach, or interfere with services. But [the border guards] feel the pressure of us being here.’ I can’t tell whether the answers are genuine or well-rehearsed, but the sense of duty is evident.

The controls are ‘very good’, he continues. ‘They are working, they can be praised’, but ‘this should have been done three years ago, when the Germans introduced the first border. It was us citizens who pushed [Tusk] against the wall and now we make sure Germans don’t push migrants back to Poland’, he says.

Although not a member of any political party, Nawrocki was backed in his presidential bid by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party – the perennial opponents of Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO). This division has run through the heart of Polish politics for decades, and was apparent when I asked locals in Słubice about the controls. While there is much criticism of the measures, this is also a region with a strong, white, populist voting base – and right to far-right parties on both sides of the river regularly poll above 30%.

‘We see what’s happening in France, in Germany, in Spain, in the UK, and we don’t want that’, a market vendor at the Słubice bazaar tells me, echoing opinions I heard throughout my visit. ‘I know a lot of black people. Many of my clients are Kurds, and these are quite normal people’, he continues, ‘but I have a baby girl. I can’t risk her being attacked.’ ‘You come to my house, well, my rules are my rules.’

When I mention that I have travelled to Słubice from Great Britain, the ROG member says he sympathises. ‘You had a beautiful country, and you lost it’, he explains, ‘and that’s what we want to avoid here. Poland is the safest country in Europe.’

Dr Krzysztof Wojciechowski explains that ‘Europe has fallen ill by its kindness, because it didn’t foresee the full extent of mass migration’. ‘When the news spread around the world that here you can get benefits like money, housing and so on,’ he continues, ‘we started attracting millions and millions – and we weren’t ready.’ Eventually, anti-immigration movements were bound to form.

This applies especially to Germany, the richest EU nation and historically the country which has offered the most lucrative social benefits for migrants in Europe. In 2015, former Chancellor Angela Merkel initiated her ‘Wilkommenskultur’ towards foreigners, but Germany invested little in the infrastructure needed to deal with such an influx, leaving an ill-equipped asylum system.

The response came in October 2023, when former Chancellor Olaf Scholz introduced random checks on the Polish-German border. Domestic pressure in Poland has been rising ever since, with anti-immigration forces complaining about migrants being sent back into the country from Germany. Between January 2024 and February 2025, Germany returned 11,000 migrants – around half of which were Ukrainian.

However, movements like the ROG greatly exaggerate the problem. First, because the number of migrants pushed back into Poland is on the decline. Average monthly returns were falling long before controls were established on the Polish side, decreasing from 981 between January and May 2024, to 724 from June 2024 to February 2025.

Second, Poland is a so-called transit country, so even if migrants are forced back into Poland, they’re likely to just find another way back into Germany. ‘The ultimate objective of any migrant has always been Germany or Sweden’, says Marzenna Guz-Vetter, former director of the European Commission Representation in Poland.

And third, many of these migrants have started and so are legally entitled to continue asylum procedures in Poland. This is one of the reasons why, according to the Polish border guard spokesman, there were only 24 ‘refusals of entry’ into Poland during the first seven days of the new border controls – out of the 67,000 people and 28,500 vehicles that were cleared.

While Germany has had serious issues integrating a large number of foreigners, therefore, Poland simply doesn’t take in the migrants via its western border that many express a desire to stop, pointing instead to a deeper societal issue.

‘For me it’s normal to meet people of different skin colours, speaking different languages’, Mayor Marzena Słodownik explains, highlighting that she studied at the Collegium Polonicum, where there was a strong international representation. ‘Historically, we Poles have also had to evacuate our country, or travel for work, and then others helped us,’ she adds, but ‘right now, we maybe don’t understand that as well.’

Current students at the Viadrina University tell me that they feel ‘angry’ and ‘powerless’, as many of their peers from beyond Europe are now confronted by ‘super racist’ profiling at the border. ‘They know the controls from their home countries,’ one student says, ‘and they’re very afraid.’

Agnieszka Zdziabek-Bollmann summarises that ‘Poland as a country is very much defined by appearance, so anyone who looks different, or has darker skin…well, you can see them right away.’ ‘I really feel sorry for these people,’ she says, warning that ‘when everyone pushes them to the other side and pretends they don’t see them anymore, a certain destabilisation begins, a sociological and emotional one.’

A Battle of Narration, Not Immigration

As Dr Krzysztof Wojciechowski ends one of his stories, he opens his eyes and pauses for effect. ‘Political tensions in Poland are on the rise. The right-wing starts to run riot,’ he tells me, ‘but this is largely a problem of words.’ Contrary to what we might read or see, Wojciechowski repeats, illegal immigration is not a major issue for Poland on the Polish-German border.

Bartosz Wieliński, a political scientist and deputy editor-in-chief of the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, tells me that most of the immigration-based political tension in the country comes rather from ‘a very malicious information campaign’, run by PiS and other right-wing parties, accusing Germans of flooding Poland with migrants.

‘They’re just like hounds, who bark a lot but don’t bite’, says Wieliński about the PiS party. They never introduced such controls on the Polish-German border when they were in power, but happily spread fake news which is ‘very emotionally loaded’. This combines real immigration concerns with an anti-German sentiment that has existed since the foundation of modern Polish nationalism.

Towards the end of June, reporters from TV Republika filmed a video on the bridge between Frankfurt and Słubice, claiming to show Germans depositing a group of Afghan citizens on Polish territory. It’s worth noting that TV Republika has been very supportive of the PiS party, which partially funded the news station when it was in power.

Despite using inflammatory rhetoric, and involving members of the citizens’ patrols in order to rile the Polish border guards, the video only really shows routine checks. Nonetheless, the story was shared by other media like polanddaily24. ‘I myself have observed many such reports…where people of colour were filmed to show there is a very serious problem with immigration,’ Piotr Firfas tells me, ‘even though no one here has this feeling.’

Wojciechowski recalls similar hysteria in the German press before the introduction of visa-free travel in the early 1990s. He laughs as he remembers one night, when a right-wing group descended on Frankfurt and attacked a bus crossing the border, hitting the sides with baseball bats, smashing windows and injuring one passenger.

He laughs because the bus was actually leaving Germany for Poland, and because it wasn’t smuggling migrants, but a symphony orchestra. ‘They smacked some violinist on the head!’, he chuckles.

Nevertheless, the images went viral around the world – and resurfaced as recently as in 2011. This is the way information campaigns influence opinion, Wieliński says, and how Poland becomes ‘a monocultural country which is more and more proud that we have no problems with migrants’.

On the final day of my visit, in a Shell gas station 100 metres from the border, I’m greeted by a well-mannered, well-built, clean-shaven man, with a small Polish flag pinned to his top. This is Robert Bąkiewicz, the fire-brand, far-right leader who runs the ROG and has built a national reputation for being something of a political troublemaker.

Over the course of an hour, Bąkiewicz expertly weaves together a worldview in which Germany is pursuing ‘a policy of expansion’ over Poland. ‘Everything is being done in such a way that we remain Germany’s junior’, he concludes, warning for example that Germany will soon be writing the textbooks that teach Poles about the Second World War.

At the same time, Bąkiewicz repeats that there is no evidence of illegal activity perpetrated by himself or the ROG, blaming instead ‘the Goebbelsian distortion of reality perpetrated by the left-liberal media’. Since we spoke, the previous conservative president, Andrzej Duda, has partially pardoned Bąkiewicz over a ‘hooligan act‘ against Grandma Kate (‘Babcia Kasia’), a prominent protester for women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. He has also been charged with verbally abusing uniformed officers on the border, for which he has pleaded not guilty.

Bąkiewicz also blames left-liberal ‘ideological foundations’ for ‘the mass migration that has essentially devastated Western Europe’. ‘It’s clear that Poles, as a rule, are white. They’re not black, they’re not Asian. We are white.’ ‘Put a black person before a child without any ideology,’ he argues, ‘and they will say this person is different from us.’

I expected such narratives. Politicians like Bąkiewicz thrive by amplifying problems, connecting everything with migration, and anti-German sentiment has become their ‘obsession’, Wojciechowski says.

What I didn’t expect was his assistant. He’s bald but has a beard, and is sporting a socks and sandals combination. Yet what really catches my eye is the way in which he looks at Bąkiewicz. Not once does he divert his gaze while his boss is speaking, and when the latter goes to take one of many calls, he says loyally that Bąkiewicz ‘is a very good leader’. ‘You can truly follow him with trust,’ he adds, ‘because I’m 100% sure he has good intentions.’ He, too, then starts talking about the ‘Germanisation’ of Słubice.

In comparison to the likes of Bąkiewicz, the government of Donald Tusk ‘doesn’t know how to communicate with society’, Wojciechowski says. Analysts have criticised the current ruling coalition for failing to convey its successes to the public. It only appointed a public spokesperson this June, following the damaging defeat of its presidential candidate.

With elections upcoming in 2027, Tusk is trying not to make the same mistake, and border controls are a good ‘communication instrument’, Norbert Cyrus explains, allowing the government to say ‘okay, we have a solution for that’.

Wieliński says that Tusk’s strategy is always to ‘outgamble’ the opposition. Instead of sending police to disperse Bąkiewicz’s citizens’ patrols, he goes further than PiS would and introduces full-blown controls. The aim is to lessen political pressure, usurping the ROG and addressing elevated concerns about immigration, while showing a firm response to German border checks. ‘This is not a rational fight’, Wieliński concludes, ‘but a fight about narration.’

A New Type of Politics

The Polish government has now extended these controls twice, which means they will be in place until at least 4 April 2026. This is unsurprising, given around 58% of the population supports the checks, and 60% say they disapprove of the ROG. Many Poles seem to be buying into Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s message of security.

Yet Dr Krzysztof Wojciechowski repeats that controls on the Polish-German border are ‘a very, very bad and stupid thing’. The Polish government is introducing controls ‘not because there is something that can be controlled, but in response to right-wing hysteria’.

When Berlin first introduced its checks in October 2023, Tusk condemned the ‘de facto suspension of the Schengen agreement on a large scale’. Now that there are checks on both sides, Warsaw and Berlin have made an extra effort to display a strong relationship.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has praised ‘a very close, very collegial, friendly cooperation’ with Tusk, highlighting that ‘we want to solve a common problem together’. He stresses that ‘freedom of movement in the Schengen area will only work in the long term if it is not abused by those who promote irregular migration’.

In late July, former Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak held a joint press conference with his German counterpart, Alexander Dobrindt, at the Polish-Belarusian border. Minsk has conducted hybrid warfare for years by funnelling illegal migrants into Europe through Poland, and both ministers pledged to resolve immigration issues together at the EU’s external borders.

Despite this promise of collaboration, however, the extension of Polish controls at the German border only mainstreams the propaganda of right-wing, populist circles. Tusk has enacted the same suspension of Schengen that he condemned less than two years ago – and on the Polish-German border, where there is no immigration conflict comparable to that with Belarus.

Agnieszka Zdziabek-Bollmann clears the table we’re sitting at and traces the outline of the European Union with her index finger. At one end is Ukraine, and at the other is Portugal. Pointing to where Frankfurt and Słubice would lie, she asks in disbelief: ‘And suddenly we’re introducing our own controls right here in the middle?’. ‘Warsaw and Berlin don’t seem to understand how we live,’ Zdziabek-Bollmann concludes.

‘Politicians think that the only way to fight with these populists is to be more populist,’ Wojciechowski says, ‘but to what end? The right wing has no moral compass. If they could, they would set the whole country on fire just to shout that they can fix it.’

Meanwhile, right-wing politicians come up with another issue, or assemble another citizen patrol. Since the controls were introduced, far-right demonstrators have flooded the streets of dozens of Polish cities, while PiS has announced that it will hold a major anti-migration rally in Warsaw in October.

‘We need an extremely serious and far-going European solution,’ Marzenna Guz-vetter tells me, ‘which better protects our external borders, and which takes into account the macro-level issues that drive migration.’

Countries have to address problems with integration, Wojciechowski says, rather than resort to ‘cosmetic’ checks. While irregular migration has substantially dropped in recent years, the EU is failing to properly integrate new migrants, according to this index.

And above all, Norbert Cyrus says, ‘it’s about the message’.

The town hall in Słubice is similar to the other communist-era buildings you’ll find across Poland. It’s relatively old, made of concrete and the colourful exterior has started to turn grey – much like the rainclouds that catch me as I arrive.

When I enter Marzena Słodownik’s office, however, the room feels bright. I notice a yellow flower on the windowsill, and light comes in through a break in the clouds. Słodownik herself conveys the same bright optimism. She tells me that 14 months ago when she was elected Mayor, she ran on the slogan of ‘A Dream Community’ (‘Gmina Jak Marzenie’), both as a promise to fulfil ‘dreams, not politics’, and as a play on her name (Marzena).

At the same time, it is clear to me that she is a strong, down to earth character. Before being elected, Słodownik had never been involved in politics, having worked instead for non-governmental organisations and charities. For six years, including during the pandemic, she worked as a fundraiser at the local hospital. When she speaks, she sits upright, clasps her hands, plants them on the table and demands your attention.

Throughout our conversation, Słodownik repeats that she does not see herself as a politician. ‘[Politicians] say what their people want to hear, not the truth, and that means they are part of the problem’, she says. ‘[My team] were complete newcomers, far from politics, but truly people who wanted to act, talk to all sides and respect different views.’

Earlier that morning, a group had entered into the town hall and started shouting at Słodownik, calling her a ‘rainbow mayor’ and accusing her of wanting to turn Słubice into another Frankfurt – which they falsely claimed is overrun by dangerous migrants. Słodownik tells me she deals with such instances all the time. ‘I just say hello, introduce myself and invite them for a coffee to talk about my ideas for the town.’

Słodownik adds that she faces similar criticism on the council board, two-thirds of whom oppose her views. ‘Every session is a barrage of attacks’, she says, ‘and why shouldn’t I stoop to the same level?’. She promptly answers her own question: ‘the best method is always conversation’. ‘The only thing I can do when talking to my city council is tell them how I feel, defend myself properly, and do my job well.’

‘Our societies are becoming very polarised. People want a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye,’ Słodownik continues, but ‘we don’t need paralysis, we don’t need additional problems.’

‘Today, the European Union needs leaders with a new perspective and message, wise and brave, to properly protect the European Union, while strengthening it at the same time. This is how I see it, here on the border, in a twin city that breathes with common lungs in the very heart of Europe.’

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All photos taken by Staś Kaleta. In order:

1. Bridge between Frankfurt an der Oder and Słubice, looking towards Słubice

2. Polish border checks

3. ‘No Immigration!’ signs and the Border Defence Movement

4. German border checks

5. Lila Syrek-Jermakowicz, Flower Shop Owner

6. Cigarette store in Słubice

7. More cigarette stores by the border

8. Marzenna Januszkiewicz, Seamstress

9. Fruit and veg stall at the Polenmarkt

10. More stalls at the Polenmarkt

11. Agnieszka Zdziabek-Bollmann, Polish-German Management Consultant

12. Traffic in Frankfurt an der Oder before the bridge

13. Traffic just outside Frankfurt an der Oder, on the motorway towards Berlin

14. Hanseatic City Festival

15. Hanseatic City Festival marathon

16. Hanseatic City Festival observation wheel

17. Hanseatic City Festival rides

18. Claus Junghanns, Mayor of Frankfurt an der Oder

19. Dr Krzysztof Wojciechowski, Former Director of Collegium Polonicum

20. Collegium Polonicum

21. European University Viadrina

22. Inside European University Viadrina

23. Two Members of the ‘Border Defence Movement’

24. Robert Bąkiewicz, Leader of the ‘Border Defence Movement’

25. Marzena Słodownik, Mayor of Słubice

26. Słubice town hall

27. Town hall flags.

• Border Controls
• Donald Tusk
• Europe
• Far-Right
• Germany
• Immigration
• Law and Justice
• Poland
• Robert Bakiewicz
• Schengen