Diary from Poland: Belarusian woman Maria reunites with daughter in exile after five years

Column: War and Peace By Ljubow Lunjowa Published: 17 July 2026, 11:54

At the Warsaw bus station, extraordinary reunions take place. This is the story of how Olga and her daughter were finally able to greet their mother and grandmother.

The Warszawa Zachodnia bus station is a place familiar to nearly every Belarusian exile in Warsaw. This is where the buses from Belarus arrive — at platform 8.

I came here this morning to pick up someone expected on a bus from Minsk. The schedule is almost never kept, as waiting times at the border vary greatly. Bus or car are now the only ways to travel to Belarus. Rail traffic between Poland and Belarus was suspended in spring 2020, and there have been no flight connections since summer 2021.

I am waiting for Maria. She is my friend's sister, and I have known her since childhood. Standing with me at the station are Maria's daughter Olga and her seven-year-old granddaughter Anja. Maria called in between to say she had crossed the border. Only then could we breathe a sigh of relief. Until that phone call, we had lived in uncertainty for several days.

A Family Separated for Five Years

Since 2021, Maria had not seen her daughter and granddaughter, who were forced to leave Belarus. It is a story typical of tens of thousands of Belarusian families — including my own.

Five years after Olga's departure, Maria has now followed her daughter — and her granddaughter — into exile.

Whoever Condemns Violence Insults the State

Maria was supposed to come to Poland in April. But an incident thwarted her plans: She was caught in one of the regular raids. Security forces discovered that she had subscribed to "extremist" channels on her phone. In Belarus, all channels except state media are classified as extremist.

They also found an older Facebook comment in which Maria had condemned violence — for the authorities, this constituted an insult to state representatives. Her apartment was subsequently searched.

A Journalist Forced to Flee

Maria's daughter Olga is a journalist. She was first arrested in September 2020, on the sidelines of one of the Sunday protest marches, just a few steps from the entrance to her apartment building. Masked security forces without any insignia ran up from behind and threw her to the ground. She was then thrown into a blue prisoner transport vehicle.

As the van drove off, she told the men that her child was waiting for her at home. The answer: a blow with a rubber truncheon to the back. "Shut your mouth, bitch, before we smash your skull in!" shouted one of the masked security forces. The next blow hit her legs.

Olga was not released until early morning. Because she had a small child, she was not taken into pre-trial detention but received a fine instead.

Olga worked successfully as a journalist. When she was arrested for the second time, the young mother lost her job. Shortly afterward, neighbors informed her that police officers had been looking for her. She knew what that meant: She was summoned for interrogation.

She had only half an hour to pack her things. Then she took a taxi to the bus station, bought a ticket for the next bus — to any country in the European Union.

Photo: International bus station Zachodnia in Warsaw (imagebroker/imago)

Editor's note: Through donations to the taz panterstiftung, independent and critical journalists on the ground and in exile are financially supported within the framework of the projects "Diary War and Peace" and "Our Window to Russia, Belarus and other post-Soviet countries." On the last day of each month, our podcast "Free Speech" is published, featuring voices from the foundation's projects.