Writers & Deserters: The Polish Experience in the Promised Land

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Writers & Deserters:

The Polish Experience in the Promised Land

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‘Palestine’ collage for the Artists in Arms project, photo: artwork by rzeczyobrazkowe / Adam Mickiewicz Institute

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Soldiers from Anders’ Army were first transported to Palestine in May 1942; many arrived there in 1943. But they weren’t the only Poles displaced to the Middle East in the turmoil of World War II.

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Guide to Palestine, photo: Polona.pl

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A publishing empire

The writer Aleksander Klugman stated:

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Map of Palestine,1939, photo: Polona.pl

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‘A miniature Europe’

Michał Waszyński’s 1946 film Wielka Droga (The Great Road), which recounts the Anders’ Army odyssey, contains a scene in which three shepherds from Lwów (today’s Lviv), who have been incor

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The Bank Polska Kasa Opieki SA, branch in Tel Aviv, 1934, photo: National Digital Archives

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Accounts state that local communities – both Arab and Jewish – showed the Polish civilians and soldiers a warm welcome. Even British soldiers took advantage of this fact by decorating their cars with white-and-red flags.

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‘Palestine: The Jewish National Headquarters in Pictures’, 1941, photo: Polona.pl

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‘Amongst Palestinian Arabs’ photo report from the ‘Nasze Drogi’ (Our Roads) magazine, March 1941, photo: Polona.pl

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photo: Polona.pl

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Meetings with Polish Jews, the sound of the Polish language on the street, familiar Polish dishes listed on restaurant menus – given all of this, the Anders’ Army could feel ‘almost at home’ here.

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Page with advertisements, ‘Nasze Drogi’ (Our Roads) magazine, March 1941, photo: Polona.pl

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In Palestine, primarily in Tel Aviv, most of the immigrants from the Interwar period were Polish Jewish. Polish restaurants, cafés, shops, tailors, barbers and even large-scale commercial and industrial enterprises popped up – and these were Polish not only in name, but also in their methods of distribution and the way they served clients. The Polish language stood as an equal partner to Hebrew and English.

From ‘Z Melpomeną na Emigracji’ (Emigré Life with Melpomena) by Kazimierz Krukowski, trans. LD

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Northern view of Zina Dizengoff Square,1934, designed by Genia Averbuch, photo: Polin Museum press materials

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Thus, many from the ranks of Anders’ Army described their time in Palestine with great emotion. The Mediterranean climate was an unexpected breath of air after their experiences sweltering in the heat of the Iraqi desert camps.

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Marian Czuchnowski, photo; szukawarchiwach.gov.pl

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Parade of the Independent 2nd Armored Brigade in front of General Kazimierz Sosnkowski on Hill 69 near Gaza, photo: Tadeusz Szumański Photographic Archive / National Digital Archives / audiovis.nac.gov.pl

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Polish soldiers with Palestinians, photo: Tadeusz Szumański Photographic Archive / National Digital Archives / audiovis.nac.gov.pl

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Polish soldiers watching a Palestinian woman carry a jug on her head, photo: Tadeusz Szumański Photographic Archive / National Digital Archives / audiovis.nac.gov.pl

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Kibbutz visits & Bible nights

The life of the Polish diaspora in Palestine was not, however, an idyll, as descriptions like these may imply.

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Władysław Broniewski in a labour camp, photo: Wikimedia Commons

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For many Catholic soldiers, this visit to the Holy Land – where, with their own eyes, they could see places they had only heard about in church – was quite the experience. The army organised group tours to sites associated with the life of Jesus.

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Roman Brandstaetter, photo: Roman Brandstaetter Association Archives

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Marian Czuchnowski and Władysław Broniewski were given leave from military service and posted to Jerusalem.

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Władysław Broniewski po wypuszczeniu z sowieckiego więzienia. Moskwa, październik 1941, fot. "Karta"/Zbiory Muzeum Władysława Broniewskiego

Władysław Broniewski after being released from a Soviet prison in Moscow, October 1941, photo: ‘Karta’ / Collection of the Władysław Broniewski Museum

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Broniewski was particularly proud of the fact that his wartime poems were finding their way to ordinary soldiers, and being posted on the walls of military tents. In Jerusalem, he wrote his famed poem Ode to Polish Jews:

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Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem at the Antonia fortress, a fragment of the Roman Ecce Homo Arch, 1942-43, photo: National Digital Archives / https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl

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I don’t like religious Jerusalem. There’s a kind of intrusive hedging of all faiths; a dull and pointless fanaticism. Christ’s tomb is of little interest, and only Via Dolorosa has a hint of character – thanks to the fact that it has remained an alleyway, where dirt, noise and selling reigns, as if it were two thousand years ago… not unlike ours back home, on Miła Street.

Władysław Broniewski, in a letter to his daughter, May 1943, trans. LD

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The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, also known as the Mosque of Omar, 1942-43, photo: National Digital Archives / https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl

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But the most beautiful place of all is Jerusalem. You should know that Jerusalem is at the same height as Zakopane, and there are picturesque hills all around, swaths of white stones, greenery burning in the summer sun, and there, at the horizon, cypresses, grey-green olives, and houses built of white stone.

Władysław Broniewski, in a letter to his daughter, May 1943, trans. LD

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Gethsemane, or, the Garden of Olives, in Jerusalem, 1942, photo: National Digital Archives / https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl

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There, people, cities, capitals are dying

There, the nation in battle –

And here I walk,

I tread Jerusalem’s streets

I bite my fingers

Someday, I want... to see Żoliborz..

Even if for a moment…

If not –

The Mediterranean Sea

I’ll die of sadness.

Trans. LD

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The sea and beach in Tel Aviv, photo: Ze'ev Aleksandrowicz

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Sooner or later, almost all of these writers left Palestine: whether for Poland, like Broniewski, Brandstaetter, or Stern (and the latter only after 1948, at the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli war), or for the West, like Marian Czuchnowski, who would spe

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Anatol Stern, 1940s, photo: the collection of Danuta Łomaczewska / East News

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Lipski’s micro-story Piotruś (Petey) is a brutal and chaotic guide to Tel Aviv’s dark side: a world of shady exchanges, brothel-hotels, and general human misery and humiliation.

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Leo Lipski, photo: Literary Institute

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Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, 1922, photo: Wikimedia

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Modern Architecture, photo: Ze'ev Aleksandrowicz

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‘I’m reporting that I’m deserting’

Three thousand Polish Jewish soldiers also arrived in Palestine.

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Poster of ‘the largest ship on the line’, 1936, photo: POLIN Museum press materials

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The Yishuv, or the Jewish community residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, took care of those arriving from the USSR; they organised meetings, and outings to Jewish holy sites.

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Participants of a Jewish demonstration against the ban on leaving for Palestine, Nalewki Street, Warsaw, 1930, photo: National Digital Archives / https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl

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Some of these people settled in kibbutzim or joined paramilitary organisations, such as the Irgun and the Haganah.

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Menachem Begin (front row, first from left) in the uniform of the Polish Army in the East, December 1942, photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Two decades later, when asked about the desertions in an interview for the Paris-based Polish journal Kultura (Culture), General Anders replied:

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‘Makkabi’ poster, 1942, photo: Polona.pl

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