The Debrief

This week, we’re in Warsaw and John Beauchamp has a chat with architect Michał Kempiński about the redesign of Five Corner Square, which is also going to have a sculptural surprise from the same artist who crafted the Warsaw Palm, Joanna Rajkowska.

This podcast goes out exactly one month since Russia started its war with Ukraine. On Friday 24 March, President Biden was in Warsaw for talks and to show solidarity with Ukraine, a day after attending a NATO summit in Brussels.

Meanwhile, the number of people running from the conflict is still increasing. In a month since the conflict started, million Ukrainians have entered Poland. Some have travelled on, some have stayed.

Catch up on the latest with our podcasts on the Ukraine war:

• How Poland is handling the humitarian crisis
• Poles opens their homes to Ukrainians, but for how long?

On the the next episode of the Debrief (2 April), we’ll be looking at how specialists from the Polish National Heritage Institute are helping Ukrainians save their cultural heritage against potential Russian destruction.

In this episode of The Debrief, we take a look at Poland’s gargantuan humanitarian efforts as more than 2 million Ukrainians take refuge in the country.

Coming up in the show, John Beauchamp talks to Dr Dorota Heidrich, a specialist on forced migration and refugees at Warsaw University, about how Poland has coped with such a wave of migration since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

We also look at the continuing border crisis with Belarus and Poland’s need to come up with a coherent migration policy.

While war in Ukraine continues to wreak destruction, we take a look at Poland’s incredible response to the huge influx of refugees from its eastern neighbour.

With the war in Ukraine reaching its third week, over 1.2 million people have so far crossed the border into Poland. Some will remain in Poland for now, or move further towards other countries further west in Europe.

Meanwhile, Polish society has mobilised itself to the fullest, providing transport, food and essential items, as well as temporary housing and offers of work as well as all kinds of further support.

Civic society groups and NGOs are essentially managing a humanitarian crisis, with the number of arrivals increasing on a daily basis.

In this week’s episode, we get valuable insight from Dr Olena Babakova, an independent Ukrainian analyst and commentator who has lived in Poland for almost 20 years. We spend a few words on the war, what this means for Ukraine and the region, and how Poland has reacted to the wave of refugees.

We also hear from Marzenna Reyher, who manages a family-run bed and breakfast near Lelów some 50 km east of Częstochowa. Like thousands of Poles nationwide, she’s opened up her accommodation to those fleeing conflict.

There’s only one thing which is going through anyone’s mind at the moment and that is of course the terrible attack on Ukraine by Russia.

We’ll be getting into the nitty gritty of what has been going on in Ukraine and what Poland’s response has been like in a special edition of The Debrief next week with a number of different voices and stories coming out of this war.

For this episode, however, I wanted to concentrate on the urban fabric of Ukraine’s cities and to celebrate how far Ukrainian culture has come over the past decade.

John Beauchamp is in the studio with architect and curator Kacper Kępiński from the National Architectural Institute – which is offering to help architects and designers affected by the war in Ukraine look for employment in Poland – as well as architect and researcher Kuba Snopek, who was a programme director at the Kharkhiv School of Architecture and continues to have close ties to Ukraine.

As Poland recovers from Storm Eunice, are such winds going to become the new normal as a result of climate change?

We have recently had some severe weather in Poland and right across Europe with Storm Eunice. Over a million people were left without power across the country while heavy winds topping 120 km/h even caused a number of fatalities.

Is this weather becoming the new normal and what can we do to prepare ourselves better for such extreme conditions? In the studio host John Beauchamp speaks to geographer and marine meteorologist Michał Brennek.

You can find out more about what Michał does here, and for the Polish speakers among you, be sure to also check out the Nauka o Klimacie website.

This week, as we approach the Christian period of Lent and mark the end of carnival, Poles up and down the country will be feasting on Fat Thursday, or ‘Tłusty Czwartek’, which is the last Thursday before Ash Wednesday.

In this episode, John Beauchamp speaks to Pastry Master Wojtek Starowicz from the renowned Starowicz Cukiernia sweet shop in Kraków about the Polish traditional sweets eaten at the end of carnival – pączki and faworki…

In a burst of festive cheer we take a look at some sweet treats in the form of rose-filled pączki – doughnuts – and the ever-so-light faworki, thin strips of deep fried pastry. Is your mouth watering yet?

In this episode of The Debrief, we take a look at the work of Bogdan Dziworski, a Polish photographer and cinematographer who has just turned 80.

Bogdan Dziworski was – and still is – a prolific street photographer. Often dubbed Poland’s answer to Vivian Maier, he has worked for a number of decades at home and abroad.

Starting out in post-war Poland, he went on to rub shoulders with personalities such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who offered the Polish photographer a chance to join the world-renowned Magnum Agency. However, Dziworski turned down the offer, instead deciding to concentrate on his film work.

The Leica Gallery in Warsaw is now celebrating Dziworski’s 80th birthday with a display of the photographer’s work with a number of exhibitions both in Poland and beyond.

Host John Beauchamp is joined by curator Rafał Łochowski from the Warsaw Leica Gallery.

Is there anything you want to hear or read about? You can get in touch with the show by writing to [email protected], and please remember to share, like and subscribe to The Debrief!

A Polish NGO is training a new generation of teachers to boost the Polish public education system, with an aim to reboot the school system nationwide.

John Beauchamp takes a look at how NGO Teach for Poland wants to raise the level of education in the country by training a new generation of educators in an interview with Katarzyna Nabrdalik, co-founder and CEO of Teach for Poland, part of the Teach for All network.

Is there anything you want to hear or read about? You can get in touch with the show by writing to [email protected], and please remember to share, like and subscribe to The Debrief!

In this episode, John Beauchamp speaks to Konrad Schiller from the Warsaw Museum about a new exhibition which highlights Warsaw’s hidden waterways.

Apparently there’s more to the city than just the Vistula! Who knew? You can find out more by checking out the museum’s website here.

Is there anything you want to hear or read about? You can get in touch with the show by writing to [email protected], and please remember to share, like and subscribe to The Debrief!

In this episode of The Debrief, we take a look at Ondinata, a new musical release which aims to raise awareness of CHS and help a family in need.

A very rare disease commonly known as Ondine’s curse, central hypoventilation syndrome, or CHS, affects just a couple of thousand people globally. Very simply put it is a respiratory disease where people forget to breath. Which is OK during the day when you’re up and about, but what about when you go to sleep? This is what affects Leo, a kid from Warsaw who has to be hooked up to medical equipment so that he can breathe at night.

While there is no cure for now, Leo’s parents, Magda Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński, have decided to take matters into their own hands and have released a CD full of specially written tracks by top names from Poland and abroad, hoping to raise money, awareness of CHS and the possibility to break Ondine’s curse.

Host John Beauchamp speaks to Magda Hueckel about her journey with CHS and Ondinata.

You can find more information about the CD here and the Polish CCHS Foundation here.