The fourteenth of June is World Blood Donor Day, so it is a good moment to finally write about it. Day to day there is nothing spectacular about it, since it is an hour every few weeks, but over so many years quite a few stories have piled up, and some of them happened on the German side of the border.
Four badges, four ID cards
All those visits have added up to more than twenty litres. In Poland voluntary donors receive badges in stages, for each further set of litres, and every badge comes with its own ID card. So I have collected four badges and four ID cards, and the latest badge, “Zasłużony dla Zdrowia Narodu” (Meritorious for the Nation's Health), I received in 2025. It was presented at a gala, on stage together with other donors.
It sounds serious, but there is no great feat in it. You just come back whenever the break between donations is over and keep at it for fifteen years. The calendar does the rest.
Chocolate, peanut butter and zero zloty at the pharmacy
After giving blood you get something to help you recover. Most often it was chocolate bars, but sometimes there was peanut butter, and a few times breakfast.
The ID card itself gives you more. Thanks to it I ride public transport for free, I can see a doctor without queueing, and some medicines are handed to me at the pharmacy at no charge. I will not pretend it is nothing, because paying zero zloty at the pharmacy till is a genuinely nice feeling.
I talked quite a few people into it
What pleases me most, though, is something other than badges and chocolate. Over the years I have tried to persuade friends and acquaintances, as well as my sister and my fiancée, to give blood. Quite a few people said yes, the two of them included. I get a badge once every few years, while every one of those people means litres I would never have given on my own.
A questionnaire in German and university hospitals
In Germany I gave blood at university hospitals. The questionnaire you fill in before donating was, of course, in German, and there are a lot of questions. You need to understand every one of them, because your answers decide whether you are allowed to donate at all.
Twice I donated there “commercially”. In Germany some donation centres pay donors a small allowance, and if I remember correctly I got about 25 euros. Before it came to that, though, I went through a proper circus.
A million documents and “not enough German”
At first the registration desk wanted, put simply, a million documents from me. The second time they came up with one more that nobody had mentioned before, and then they decided that my German was not good enough.
So I scanned all the documents, added my B2 German certificate and passed the lot on to the management of the blood donation centre. Suddenly there was an appointment for me, and the women at the registration desk treated me completely differently, this time with respect.
The only time
It is the only time in my life that I have met intolerance and condescension abroad, and at such a high level at that. Apart from this, I remember dealing with official matters in Germany rather fondly. In the end I did give blood, the road to the chair was just longer there than anywhere else.