Paul Grüninger Foundation honors Polish refugee aid worker
Published: Thursday, Nov 16th 2023, 04:50
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Paula Weremiuk from Narewka on the Polish-Belarusian border receives the Paul Grüninger Prize, endowed with 50,000 Swiss francs. The Polish woman works as a teacher during the day and as a refugee aid worker in the Bialowieza forest at night. According to the Paul Grüninger Foundation, a refugee drama of enormous proportions has been taking place there since 2021.
Paula Weremiuk searches for people in need in the inaccessible areas of Bialowieza, providing them with clothing, food, sleeping bags and the most basic necessities, writes the Paul Grüninger Foundation. The Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenka is forcing thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Africa across the border to Poland, where they are met with strong political rejection.
At the border, in the primeval forest of Bialowieza, there is often brutal violence, abuse, rape and repeated deaths. The refugees, including women and small children, are helplessly abandoned to their fate in the inaccessible terrain and are chased back and forth across the border by the authorities. Refugee helpers are being harassed and criminalized, the press release continues.
With the prize, the Paul Grüninger Foundation wants to honor the courageous deeds of Paula Weremiuk. "At the same time, we see it as a political signal against the inhumane isolation of the European Union and Switzerland against refugees." Weremiuk will be present at the award ceremony in St. Gallen on Friday.
Second prizewinner is in prison
A recognition prize worth 10,000 Swiss francs goes to Ayse Gökkan. From 2009 to 2014, she was mayor of the Kurdish town of Nusaybin, on the border between Turkey and Syria. When Turkey began to erect a wall against refugees there, the mayor protested against this "wall of shame", according to the press release.
Gökkan has been arrested more than eighty times because of her commitment. She is currently in a Turkish prison. Her lawyer will accept the award.
Every three years, the Paul Grüninger Foundation awards a prize to people who have shown particular courage and humanity. It commemorates the St. Gallen police commander who enabled hundreds of Jews to escape persecution by the National Socialists before the Second World War.
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