I have always considered myself the quintessential European: both my grandparents were diplomats, they lived and worked in Europe and around the world, they spoke several languages, my father grew up in Lyon, where he got a taste for good food and wine, and he considered Western European culture superior to that of his native Poland.
While my father was a self-taught cook, our family dinners included more French and Italian dishes like beef bourguignon, lasagna, and chicken marengo than Polish pierogi and cotlet shavoi, but my mother would sometimes cook traditional dishes, especially on special occasions like Christmas and Easter. My mother spent eight years of her childhood in The Hague, where she attended an American school. From an early age, my parents spoke French and English in addition to Polish, and they also learned German when they moved with me to Cologne on a Humboldt Foundation fellowship when I was three years old.
In Germany, people were amazed to hear me speak perfect German: “Why do you have such a strong accent when you can speak like a German?” When I was in Poland, my parents spoke to me in German every Sunday so that I would remember the language.
I grew up in a household where Polish, German, French and English were heavily spoken on TV, and I have two university degrees, one of which is from a German university.
It is not surprising, then, that I grew up with the idea that Europe in the form of the EU was the ultimate goal for my country, so you can imagine my excitement when, in June 2003, I was allowed to vote in a referendum to decide whether Poland should join the EU. My country joined the EU the following May – 20 years ago now.
A few months after that monumental event, I said goodbye to friends and family and boarded a Eurolines bus from my hometown of Warsaw to Hamburg, Germany to join the Socrates Erasmus student program.
But once I arrived, my excitement faded. Everywhere I went, I heard people question whether the 10 new countries were European enough to be part of the EU. Some worried that workers from Eastern Europe would flood the job market. When I went to officially register at my new student accommodation, a civil servant who had looked at my documents turned to a colleague and said, “But Poland isn't in the EU, is it?”
It reminded me of something my father said to me when I was a child, driving through Germany: “Don't speak Polish here, they hate us,” he said.
I met my husband while in Hamburg and stayed in Germany. At one party I overheard a German person say to me that I only came here to have children and live on welfare. This was and still is a common fear, not only among Germans but also in other Western European countries, even though I was a student at the time and was fully prepared to get a job after graduation. In fact, I already had a job lined up at university.
Geert Wilders at a meeting of the far-right party Vlaams Belang in Aalst, Belgium last week. Photo: Rex/Shutterstock
Another common fear is that all Eastern European women are sex workers. A few years ago, when I went to Brighton to learn English, a friend and I went into a record shop and the owner asked us where we were from. “Oh, Polish,” he said. “So you're pole dancers then?” When we didn't understand, he started making lewd movements. It was meant as a joke, but we later realised he was not only fetishising us, but also playing on tired sex worker stereotypes. We were only 18 years old.
I moved to the Netherlands with my husband after living in Germany for three years. We are raising our three children and working as freelance writers. But the Dutch have made it clear that they will always see people from countries that were once behind the Iron Curtain as second-class Europeans. When my oldest daughter was two and her sister was still a baby, a Dutch woman called the police after hearing me speak Polish to her children. Afterwards, the nanny at the daycare center told the three Polish children, including my oldest daughter, not to speak to each other in their native language.
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Sometimes, when we complain to Westerners about the discrimination we often experience, we are told to be grateful. “The EU has done so much for Poland,” they say. “Just look at the roads.”
And in many ways, I am so grateful. My husband and I met on a European student exchange program. We come from two different countries, but thanks to the EU's free movement rights, we were able to emigrate to a third country with relative ease. I am the proud mother of three amazing children who speak several languages.
I voted in the recent European Parliament elections, but the excitement I felt 20 years ago has faded considerably, especially since I live in the Netherlands, where a coalition government led by Geert Wilders' anti-immigration party has come to power and openly expresses its hatred for Eastern Europeans as well as Muslims.
This month, my hometown celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, which liberated the city from German occupation. Though the uprising failed, the fight for freedom has been described as “a testament to the indomitable spirit of Europe.” I am proud that the historic events in the city where I grew up are connected to the Europe we live in today.
I still love the idea of the “European Dream” defined as a community of people, diverse yet united by common values, but for me and other Eastern Europeans it will always remain just that – a dream.
