People remembered they had neighbors

Henryka Szczepanowska found her way to the Sudetes from Mazovia in 1989. ‘I came here due to the treatment of my daughter, who was born with a congenital hand defect. After the first two trips to Polanica, I knew I couldn’t commute that far,’ she recalls. Over time, the area became her ‘place for ever’. ‘I find living here great, I don’t want to leave at all. Peace of mind is the most valuable thing,’ she says.

The village in which she lives has a population of less than twenty people. ‘We all know and like each other. There are no tricks or cunning here. When it snows heavy in winter, my neighbours come and shovel the snow – without asking, I don’t even know when it happens.’ For Henryka, it’s natural that ‘either we’re together or we stop feeling safe at all’.

Her home is not only a refuge but also a meeting centre. There is a bench in front of the entrance where, in summer, you can drink tea and chat about the weather, about life. The terrace overlooks the forest and the line of mountains. You can smell the tomatoes that Henryka grows in the backyard greenhouse. She loves growing vegetables and making preserves from them.

When the flood started, the community – and people from outside – got activated. Help came from all over Poland. ‘A group used to come from Poznań, and for a few months every Saturday and Sunday we would go around the houses, cleaning up, throwing out the mud,’ she recalls. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

Henryka decided to act: ‘I set up an application writing office – a simple table with a piece of paper saying that I’m helping here. I was writing appeals, claims for damages. Next to it was a board with telephone numbers to doctors, institutions. People needed information more than anything else.’

The flood brought neighbours closer together, the Church also surprised people in a positive way. ‘Even those who disliked each other shovelled shoulder to shoulder. People remembered that they had neighbours. This was important. Parishes and convents organised help desks, explained how to take invoices for materials, collected money for specific people. For the most part, they proved better than the local authorities.’

For Henryka, those days are proof that water can take away homes but also flush out indifference. People started to count more with each other, to cooperate more closely. In small, remote villages, the sense of community acts as the strongest dam.

Henryka’s story is part of the exhibition “Water Mark. One Year After the Flood”, which will be on display at Plac Centralny in Warsaw from September 5 to October 5, 2025. The exhibition features photographs by Aleksander Małachowski (@hashtagalek) as well as photos from PAH’s archives, taken by Alicja Ryś. They show the places affected by the September 2024 flood, as well as the people who received support from PAH. The exhibition is also available HERE.

Do you like the photos from the exhibition? Donate any amount to photographer Aleksander Małachowski’s fundraiser and receive 6 photos selected by him! After making a donation, you will automatically receive an email with the photos ready to download.
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Download the Polish Humanitarian Action’s report on post-flood activities.
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