Little Poland Across the World: The Wartime Journeys of Polish Refugees

ss_oxford10.jpg, default, Photo from the Daily Mail Hull 24 July 1950, photo: polishresettlementcampsintheuk.co.uk

The chaos, tumult and tragedy of World War II precipitated large-scale evacuations of Polish citizens across the world, from Britain to Mexico, New Zealand to India. Numerous organisations, philanthropists and volunteers facilitated the search for safe havens for displaced Poles, with several remaining in their new homes for the rest of their lives. Below are just some of the stories of Polish refugees during the war.

Allied forces, relief funds, & the ballet

Britain proved an early home for thousands of Poles following the invasion of Poland by Nazi and Soviet forces in September 1939. Polish civilians, and those in the armed forces, fled over the Carpathian mountains to Romania and Hungary, with around 90,000 military personnel known to have escaped by the end of September. Many of those in the armed forces reached France via then Yugoslavia and Italy, where new divisions were organised.

After France fell, thousands of Poles in the armed forces, and the Polish government-in-exile, transferred to London. In August 1940, an Anglo-Polish agreement allowed for the Polish land sea and air forces to be organised and employed under British command. Polish fighter and bomber squadrons were created, with Polish pilots destroying nearly 1000 enemy aircraft and dropping nearly 15,000 bombs and mines during the course of the war.

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‘The Who’s Who of the Allied Governments in Great Britain’, photo: Juliette Bretan

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As more refugees began to arrive in the UK, local organisations began to spring up to support the new Polish communities. Halik Kochanski notes that:

About 3,000 civilian refugees arrived in Britain with the Polish Army after the fall of France, and most found new homes in London or in Scotland. These Poles received a warm welcome from the Scots, and in April 1941, a Scottish–Polish Society was founded and chaired by the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine which had nearly 50 branches and around 9,800 members by the end of the war. The society provided entertainment facilities and talks on Polish and Scottish issues.

(Kochanski, from The Eagle Unbowed)

Wider efforts to support refugees in the UK included a Who’s Who of Allied Governments published in 1941 and edited by Polish-Jewish journalist Joel Cang. The reference book featured information about the Allied Governments, their Forces and Institutions – including on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Free France – for the British public and the newly arrived Eastern European exiles in London. Cang also edited the Polish-Jewish Observer, a section of the City and East London Observer, which provided news on the atrocities in occupied Poland.

But the CPR also played a vital role in coordinating with relief efforts in Britain:

Hoover’s men also stopped in Great Britain and attempted to obtain funds from private individuals and organizations as well as the British government. […] Starting out as the Anglo–Polish Relief Fund in September 1939, this group soon saw the need for some kind of coordination between the various agencies and were successful in creating the Central Fund, a kind of United Way for Poland, with Poland's Ambassador to Great Britain, Count Edward Raczynski, as the Honorary President.

(Wert)

Renamed the Polish Relief Fund, the organisation supplied the CPR with money and clothing, as well as supporting refugees in Romania, Hungary, and the Baltics. The Polish Relief Fund published Polish-English phrasebooks and copies of Polish novels. A guide to the activities of the fund published in 1940 noted that agents in Romania, Hungary and Lithuania had already distributed 30,000 overcoats, 11,000 pounds of wool and 40,000 yards of flannelette, but reinforced the need for additional help from Brits:

Compared to their sufferings, our grumbles about black–outs, rationing and things like that, are of an infinitesimal minuteness.

Among their other campaigns, the Polish Relief Fund also released a book about Anglo-Polish ballet connections, edited by British dance critic Arnold Haskell. Ballet – To Poland included poems and writing by John Masefield, Sacheverell Sitwell and John Gielgud, and featured art from Edward McKnight Kauffer and Polish painter Feliks Topolski, who had been living in Britain since the mid–1930s.

Polish refugees across the world

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Photo from the Yorkshire Post, 1950, photo: polishresettlementcampsintheuk.co.uk

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But aside from Britain, many Poles also found new homes in countries across the world during the war. In 1940, Russian soldiers began to deport Poles in Soviet-occupied Poland to Siberian labour camps, with over a million sent east between 1940 and 1941. Many perished on the journey – with bodies abandoned at the side of train tracks – and conditions in the camps were equally appalling. Thousands of Poles died of starvation, whilst others endured backbreaking work, felling trees, working in mines or transporting timber.

Following the Nazi invasion of Russia 1941, a treaty – the Sikorski-Mayski agreement – was signed between Poland and the Soviet Union, which included an ‘amnesty’ allowing for the release of many of the Poles who had been deported east. However, many Poles in labour camps were unaware of the development, and even those who were had only limited assistance from the Soviet authorities. Thousands of Poles, however, did manage to move south, joining Władysław Anders’s army as they moved through Russia and central Asia. In 1942, General Sikorski received permission to evacuate Poles into Persia (now Iran), across the Caspian Sea.

In the Middle East

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'The Lost Requiem', directed by Khosrow Sinai, photo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ry5ERzEOU5c

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However, Iran was not a permanent place of refuge for the Polish refugees, many of whom were orphans. Norman Davies notes that British forces were ‘hard-pressed, having no facilities or personnel to deal with such a large-scale influx of malnourished and disease-ridden refugees’, and hence coordinated with the government of Iran and the Polish government in London to provide a solution. The Polish government in exile petitioned embassies and Allied countries for help:

In the following months they succeeded in raising support from five separate sources: the colonial government of British East Africa, the Maharajah of Nawanagar, the Jewish Agency in Palestine, the Government of Mexico, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand. The diaspora was going to be worldwide.

(Norman Davies, In Trail of Hope)

One of the figures at the forefront of resettlement efforts was the pre-war Polish star of stage and screen, Hanka Ordonówna, who worked alongside her husband Count Michał Tyszkiewicz for the Polish Consulate. The Consulate helped organise departures to transit camps in Iran – primarily Ahvaz, in the south-west – then on voyages from the Persian Gulf to countries across the world: Africa, Lebanon, Mandatory Palestine, India, New Zealand, and Mexico.

Africa

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Polish refugees in Africa, photo: memoryisourhomeland.com

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As Zdzisława Wójcik notes, more than half of the 37,000 Polish civilians who left the USSR with the Polish army found new homes in Africa, in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa. Some arrived by sea between 1942-43, and were housed in former POW camps or new settlements, whilst others were transported from refugee camps across the world:

The settlements […] operated their own businesses: farms, canteens, butcher shops, bakeries, and fabric–weaving, sewing and shoemaking shops […] the population in the Polish settlements had a specific demographic profile: about 47 percent were women, over 41.5 percent were teenagers and children, and only 11.5 percent were men.

(Wójcik, in The Polish Deportees of World War II)

According to Wójcik, the Catholic Church played a prominent role in structuring Polish communities in Africa, although the number of priests varied by settlement. Support for the refugees was also provided by the Polish Red Cross and bureaus in Nairobi, with schools and orphanages established for children. However, the food available in these orphanages often left much to be desired, as Vala Lewicki – who was based in Uganda – remembers:

Meals were never elaborate affairs. The quick breakfast varied only between a plate of baked beans and a slice of bread with tea and coffee one day, and two slices of sparingly-buttered bread with cocoa or tea the next day. Occasionally we had powdered eggs which tasted like…powder. We had sandwiches for lunch, while dinner consisted of bean soup, a slice of meat and baked beans. Always baked beans!

(Vala Lewicki, in The Polish Deportees of World War II)

New Zealand & Mexico

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The SS Dundalk Bay, photo: polishresettlementcampsintheuk.co.uk

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Just under 1000 Poles – 733 children and 105 adults – also found a new home in New Zealand during the war, after Prime Minister of the country accepted the refugees.

Arriving in Wellington in 1944, the refugees were settled in a Polish Children’s Camp in the town of Pahiatua, where Catholic services and Polish schooling and scouting trips were provided. Many of the Polish refugees also chose to settle in New Zealand after the war, finding ample opportunities for work as mining and logging industries expanded.

Meanwhile, a community of 1400 Poles also settled in Santa Rosa in Mexico, where they were welcomed by an orchestra playing the Polish national anthem. The settlement in Santa Rosa included living quarters and a school, where a Polish curriculum was used, as well as gardens and playing areas.

India

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The Maharajah Jam Saheb of Nawanager, before going to the front, photo: Mary Evans Picture Library / East News

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It is estimated that around 5000 Poles also found safe haven in India, after the wife of the Polish Consul General to Bombay, Kira Banasińska, petitioned the Maharaja of Nawanagar. The Maharaja had longstanding links to Poland – his father had been friends with pianist Ignacy Paderewski – and said that he was ‘trying to do whatever [he] can to save the children.’

Refugees settled in several camps in and around Bombay, as well as in a settlement built at the Maharaja’s summer palace. Polish culture remained an integral part of life, with Catholic teaching organised, Polish books provided, and the children also encouraged to give performances featuring traditional Polish dances and music. Sport was also encouraged: following the arrival of pre-war Lvovian footballer Antoni Maniak, a stadium and running track was built, and regular training sessions established to improve the children’s health and wellbeing. The Maharaja donated money to purchase sporting equipment – and the children proved themselves worthy foes against local teams.

The refugees dubbed the settlement camps ‘Little Poland’.

The Polish Red Cross supported the orphans who were being settled in India, although Ordonówna accompanied the first transport of children out of the Middle East, despite battling the symptoms of tuberculosis, which would later kill her.

Post-war resettlement

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Polish DPs on board the Dundalk Bay on the way to the UK, photo: polishresettlementcampsintheuk.co.uk

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At the end of the war, many Poles were unable to return to their homeland. The British government recognised the contribution of Poles in the Allied forces, and established the Polish Resettlement Act, the first mass immigration legislation, in 1947, which offered British citizenship and support for hundreds of thousands of Poles. Following the act, transports were provided to enable their relatives to also reach the UK. Four thousand Poles arrived in overland transports from Italy by rail, whilst several ships carrying hundreds of displaced Poles arrived in ports in Southampton, Liverpool, Hull, London and Glasgow in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This included a transport of 66 Poles from Santa Rosa in Mexico, who travelled aboard the Empire Windrush in its historic passage to London in 1948; around 400 Poles – including many orphans – from Kilindini Mombasa in Kenya on the SS Scythia, which docked in Liverpool; and 600 displaced women, children and elderly Poles from Cape Town on the RMS Arundel Castle, which arrived in Southampton.

On board one transport from Lebanon in 1950, on the SS Oxfordshire, were also several unexpected passengers – two hives of bees, brought by one man in his 60s. The man was allowed to keep the bees, which he took to Haydon Park resettlement camp. By the early 1950s, over 100,000 Poles were registered in Great Britain. Among them were pre-war cultural figures, including Polish poet and songwriter Marian Hemar, and singers Adam Aston, Zofia Terné and Włada Majewska; as well as artists, including the Themersons and Stanisław Frenkiel. Many of these figures played a significant role in forming Polish communities in the UK post-war.

_{Sources: Hal Elliott Wert, ‘Flight and Survival’, in}_{The Polish Review}_{, 34 (1989); Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012);}_{https://www.polishresettlementcampsintheuk.co.uk/passengerlist/shipsindex.htm}_{; https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/6127/1/504473.pdf;}_{Tadeusz Piotrowski, The Polish Deportees of World War II (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2007); Norman Davies, Trail of Hope (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2015); Anuradha Bhattacharjee, The Second Homeland (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2012);}_{https://slate.com/human}_–_{interest/2013/05/pahiatuas}_–_polish_–_world_–_war_–_ii_–_refugees_–_a_–_group_–_of_–_young_–_poles_–_made_–_a_–_new_–_life_–_in_–_new_–_zealand.html

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