Poland is home to almost a million refugees, like this family that fled Venezuela in 2019. Many escaped the war in neighbouring Ukraine, and now live alongside earlier waves of newcomers from all continents. ‘They may be different, but there is one thing they have in common – the need to find a place that reminds them of home,’ photographer Anna Liminowicz says of her project to document their stories.
Award winning photojournalist and Globe and Mail contributor Anna Liminowicz has been covering the war in Ukraine and the ensuing refugee crisis since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
This spring the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, asked her to come up with a concept for World Refugee Day on June 20. She proposed a novel idea. Ms. Liminowicz is from Poland, where almost a million refugees now live – most from Ukraine, but also many from countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. She posed a simple question: “What’s the place that reminds you of home?”
“The focus of much of my work is around identity, loss, home and what builds us up,” Ms. Liminowicz says. “Home is always with you. Wherever you go and whatever you face in exile, you are constantly searching for a place that brings back memories of where you came from.”
“This is the place” is a unique collaboration with UNHCR, involving portraits, text, and handwritten notes. The refugees profiled come from a variety of countries and all walks of life. But they each had somewhere special in Warsaw that made them feel like home.
It’s almost never a place where they sleep. It’s a metaphor of home: a church where they find solace, a park that gives them peace of mind, a riverbank reminding them of the beloved beaches of their childhood, or something as simple as a bicycle that offers a sense of freedom.
This is how refugees try to tame their reality – by befriending it, embracing it and finding somewhere that gives them strength and a chance to renew.
Some of the stories are tender, some are sad, some are common, and some are extraordinary. But each one is deeply personal.
UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, funded the work of Anna Liminowicz for this project. It did not review or approve the editorial content.