Kuchnia Konfliktu

Visual Arts

Oct 20

Jarmiła Rybicka has spent the last few years finding ways to support female refugees in Poland.

“I lived through the war. I know how easy it is to unleash hatred."

Jarmiła Rybicka has spent the last few years finding ways to support female refugees in Poland.

Kuchnia Konfliktu is a bistro that provides a safe, dignified job, a chance to share excellent cuisine, and a space for dialogue between refugees and residents of Warsaw.

Kuchnia Konfliktu was recently taken over by Khedi (woman wearing the hijab in the photos) and Fundacja Kobiety Wędrowne .

Khedi and her three children came to Poland from Chechnya in 2012. Her husband vanished in 2002, during the Second Chechen War. "One day, he just didn't come home." Khedi searched for him for 10 months - hospitals, prisons, anywhere she could think of. She eventually learnt that he had died in an explosion. Khedi knew that she had to leave her war-torn country, and finally she and her children arrived in Gdansk, Poland.

Khedi’s husband was murdered by Russian Christians. In Chechnya, Khedi believed that Christians were constantly killing Muslims. But Polish news declared the opposite: here, Muslims were portrayed as the perpetrators. Even though Khedi couldn’t understand this, she tried to teach her son that not all Christians were to blame for his father’s death: she taught her children to forgive. Without forgiveness, says Khedi, it is impossible to live a normal life.

As for Jarmiła, she is an extraordinary woman who has driven her project with empathy and imagination for five years now. According to Jarmiła, a big turning point in her life was a gap year from her studies as she traveled through Asia and witnessed terrible social injustice there. Upon her return, she knew she had to make a change in her own community.