list of polish refugees in east africa and rhodesia
That the Western Allies knew all about the deportations is clear from their relief efforts in their behalf in the Soviet Union and the Middle East. papers in Archiwa IJP, Polish version, http://dione.ids.pl/~ijp/pol/aog4.html or Polish This has fueled speculation that the U.S. government helped cover up Soviet responsibility for the massacre out of fear that saying the truth would anger Stalin, whom the Allies were counting on to help them defeat Germany and Japan in World War II. Unfortunately, due to bad health conditions caused by the poor living standard in the Soviet Union and the hardships of traveling, more than 2,100 people (5.7% of the total) died in Iran due to dysentery, typhoid, malaria and diseases caused by malnutrition. Language--U. Kholm, 1943. From 1942 to 1950, nearly twenty thousand Poles found refuge from the horrors of war-torn Europe in camps within Britain's African colonies, including Uganda, Tanganyika, Kenya and Northern and Southern Rhodesia. THE TRUTH ABOUT JEDWABNE AND HEROIC DEEDS OF THE POLISH NATION IN THE 20TH CENTURY by Prof. Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, See full text in: http://www.iyp.org/polish/history/antypolonizmy/jedwabne_en_124.html. The sworn deposition provides evidence of Soviet responsibility for the 1940 massacre of some 22,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest and other places in what was then the Soviet Union. The food was delivered: rice, flour, meat, salt, sugar, tea, and some coffee. The Polish refugees also have a positive memory of the locals, says Durand. It was in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, where the exiles got their first glimpse of Africans close up. Often it was not accurate, especially as far as dates of birth. Consuls together with delegates of the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare dealt with Polish refugees. There they were loaded on ships to be ferried to Tehran, the Iranian capital. The Kondoa settlement had 430 people, who lived in twenty barracks built of clay. At first, they were transported to the town of Bandra, in the suburbs of Bombay, where Hanka Ordonwna took care of the kids. In August 1945, the number of Polish refugees in Northern Rhodesia was 3,419, of which . Political Migrations on Polish Territories (19391950). Many Poles left Iran for India, thanks to the efforts of Polish consul in Bombay, Eugeniusz Banasinski. There were sports teams, a choir and activities groups. IWM collections, This media is not currently available. What became of the rest? South Africa, South Rhodesia, and North Rhodesia also became the home of Poles. centr. Trukhan, Myroslav. The relief assistance afforded No wonder then that the estimates among Germans themselves for the human cost of the expulsion from the German eastern territories varies from 800,000 to 3,200,000 dead.29 Even lower figures are available. Although provisions were made to resettle several thousand Poles in that country, only two transports arrived in the summer and fall of 1943 with a total of 1,432 refugees. The British did not have the intention of keeping the Polish refugees in East Africa when it was decided to take them there. The majority of applications were citizens of the former Soviet Union (in particular, Chechnya and Ukraine).. of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, "euthanasia," starvation, exposure, The first transport of Polish refugees from the Soviet Union arrived at the Tanga port in Tanganyika on August 27, 1942. The [following] article She hoped we would return to Poland some day. Earlier, already in September 1941, the Polish government decided to set up consulates in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda as well as in both Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa. We were mentally shaped by such organizations, as Sodality of Our Lady, and The Eucharistic Crusade. Houses made of clay, in the heart of Africa. 65s. The Polish representative to the Potsdam conference claimed there were only 1,500,000, the United States estimated 2,000,000. . It is a miracle that we survived, with thousands dead.[12]. Show more. This operation was complicated, time-consuming and cost-intensive, especially in the conditions of the ongoing war. [1] Within months, in order to de-Polonize annexed lands, the Soviet NKVD rounded up and deported between 320,000 and 1 million Polish nationals to the eastern parts of the USSR, the Urals, and Siberia. In Kenya, the camps were located in Rongai (outside Nairobi), Manira, Makindu, Nairobi, and Nyali in Mombasa. In 1944, the prime minister of New Zealand, Peter Fraser, agreed to take a limited number of Polish orphans and half-orphans, whose parents had died either in Soviet Union or Tehran, or whose fathers had fought at the front. Unlike the Soviet Union, these were, after all, ancient civilized cultures. PHOTO | UGANDA NATIONAL ARCHIVES. imprisoned about 500,000 Poles during 1939-1941, including former officials, Soon afterward, Moscow began a program of mass deportations of ethnic Poles as well as some Polish Jews, deep into the Soviet interior. The Poles living in the settlements in the then Tanganyika formed well-organized communities with an efficiently functioning educational system, cultural and sporting activities. 22, 1941. All are eager to help the Allied Cause in any way possible. (03.06.2019), Polish tractor maker Ursus signed a huge contract with Tanzania's National Service Corporation Sole. camp) Poland, Archives: M23 has been accusing the DRC of ignoring a promise to integrate its fighters into the army. It is not only near Poland's 500-kilometre border with Ukraine where citizens are keen to show their solidarity with the refugees. The dead were not included in the census, because . Christmas celebrations during theSecond World Waroften had to be scaled down or adjusted as restrictions and shortages took their toll. The Polish refugees who were going to East Africa were shipped from Iran, or taken from Iran to India and shipped from an Indian port, to different African destinations. Following the official closure of the internment camps and refugee settlements after the war in 1946-47, the country inherited the present Vengere Township in Rusape,4 Diggleford School The majority refused to return to the country. They settled in a camp at Santa Rosa, near the city of Len, in central Mexico. Language--U. Varshava, There's lots more.Continue on with Poland page 2. T.5. Ukrainian Studies Fund. Tyrsa. It lasted until 16 January 1943, at which point it was effectively revoked. of the deportees from Eastern Poland who managed to get out of the Soviet Overall, during German occupation of pre-war Polish territory, 1939-1945, the Germans murdered 3,900,000 to 6,400,000 Poles, probably about 5,400,000, including near 3,000,000 Jews.7, According to the German Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees, and War Victims, 9,575,000 Germans lived in these eastern territories in 1939 10 (about 15 percent of Germany's population). Zjednoczonych (1941-1942). "African countries were on their way to independence and didn't want reminders of colonial rule," said Devlin. It had a clubroom, a hospital, and a gym. list of polish refugees in east africa and rhodesia. (Roman Kryk, red.) That was when Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed a non-aggression pact that divided several eastern European countries, including Poland, into German and Soviet spheres of interest. Locals from Tengeru and the Poles even sometimes celebrated mass together, said Devlin, the head of the Center for Flight and Migration at Germany's Catholic University of Eichsttt-Ingolstadt. Within two years of the exiles arrival in Uganda, a unique community life developed in both the settlements, Koja and Nabyeya, which now had primary schools, secondary schools and a secondary economics school. Nothing looked like Poland, but adults in our camp did their best to emphasize our roots. Copies of The resettlement from Abercorn was called Operation Polejump. Dyrektor dr. Hubert Wajs, The State Archive in Przemysl The aim was a contented and reasonably self-contained community: the Poles had to be given a sense of purpose, wrote Rennie Montague Bere, a Cambridge University-educated colonial officer in Uganda who was in charge of the two refugee camps. Records. In Eastern Africa, six permanent Polish refugee settlements were established: four in Tanganyika (Tengeru, Kondoa, Ifunda, Kidugala) and two in Uganda (Masindi and Koja). Here is the other matching map to the West. . Two hostels were also established: one in Island Bay for girls, the other in Lyall Bay for boys. No doubt "Uncle Joe"(Joe Stalin) homo sovieticus barbarosus incarnate must have been grateful to the Western Allies for their conspiracy of silence, for preserving the "good name" of The resulting film, "Memory is our Homeland," won the Audience Award at the Montreal International Film Festival in 2019. Polish-American archives: http://wilson.ctstateu.edu/lib/archives/polish/ Also: Language. Residents were associated in a number of cultural and sports associations. Hitler's orders issued at this crucial moment had nothing to do with the extermination of Jews, however these orders were a retaliation for derailment by the Poles of Hitler's strategy to conquer the Euro-Asian Heartland.. In Kenya, they were located in Rongai, Manira, Makindu, Nairobi, and Nyali near Mombasa. order.5, To all this Polish misery, pain, and death, we must add what the Germans did in the Poland they ruled. There was spinning, weaving, dressmaking, basket making with raffia from the wild palm trees in the forests, carpentry and metal-working. Who is Nigerias president-elect Bola Tinubu? The Soviet Red Army had taken the Polish officers prisoner after invading eastern Poland in September 1939. At Isfahan Polish orphanage, a children's camp was opened, where 2,300 children and 300 adults stayed and eight elementary schools were created. Witness History speaks to one of them. 7a Polish refugees in Middle East (1942-47) . Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! According to one of the evacuees, Wanda Ellis: The hunger was terrible, we did not get a loaf of bread a day, as we had in Siberia. The Polish refugees housed in the various camps in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, India, and Africa moved to Great Britain and its dominions, Canada and Australia, from where some of them later emigrated to the United States; some also settled in Argentina. z Wac?awem Potockim w Montresor, Polish refugees in Africa. By genocide, the murder The settlements in Koja and Tengeru ended their activities only in the second half of 1952. signed in the presence of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, used the The last Pole, Mr. Edward Wjtowicz, was buried in Tengeru in 2015. In all, 16 Polish schools were attended by some 2,300 Polish children in India. Bogdan Harbuz stayed at Koja camp: "We did not receive any money for food, we only got 5 shillings a month for our expenses. From Poland, over Russia and Iran, to Africa. Her son died young due to an accident; her daughter still lives in South Africa with her grandchildren.[16]. t.208. In 1940, following the invasion and annexation of large parts of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, there was a mass de-Polonisation of the occupied territory, and between 320,000 and one million Polish nationals were rounded up and deported to the Urals and Siberia. That was when Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed a non-aggression pact that divided several eastern European. But that was not Altogether, 257,660 citizens of the Second Polish Republic (190,942 adults and 66,718 kids) received the passports; 1,583 refused and were sent either to prisons or gulag. Language--U. Varshava. There were 22 different camps that housed 13,000-19,000 Polish exiles spread out across East and Southern Africa, some with more than 6,000 people, others with just a handful of families. Their ships docked at Mombasa, the Kenyan port, and from there they scattered in various directions in East and Southern Africa - from the Equator to the Cape of Good Hope. Several camps were opened in and around Bombay, with the biggest one located at Kolhapur Valivade, where 5,000 stayed. As elsewhere, kindergartens and grammar schools provided for the educational needs of the youngsters. PERIODICALS For several weeks hundreds of machete-wielding Bunyoro men were put to work and cleared about a three kilometre-square of bush and elephant grass. The coastline of Lake Victoria consisted of papyrus reeds, scrubby bush and dense forest, ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes and tsetse fly. Their home became a deserted hacienda in Santa Rosa, near Leen. the Poland - Soviet Union Border during 1945 -1950 Polish soldiers went from Iran mainly to Iraq and Palestine, from where they were to go to the fronts of World War II. America. Children were taken care of by the Polish Red Cross and residents of Bombay. Language--U. Varshava, 1997. Due to financial reasons, it was decided to limit the number of Polish settlements, leaving only two in Tengeru (Tanganyika) and Koja (Uganda). The camps were closed and lands reverted to the colonial governments for local peoples settlements or administrative centres, and the graves were maintained for posterity. . They then constructed temporary mud and thatch huts. http://www.mapywig.org/m/wig500k/MAPA_POLSKI_1_500_000_KRAKOW_11.jpg, From Statistics Of Poland's Democide: Addenda* By R.J. Rummel Eventually, they migrated mostly to Australia, Canada, and Great Britain. Historian Erik Lindner takes a long look back to discover answers to this question. With a few days, Germany invaded Poland, triggering World War 2. In addition to the permanent settlements, several temporary camps were created, including in Morogoro, Kigoma, Dar es Salaam, Iringa and Tosamaganga in Tanganyika. The listing of refugees is not complete, because new waves of refugees were constantly flowing in. From 1942 to 1949, Gerech lived with her siblings and parents in a simple thatched hut in Tengeru in what was then the British-administered territory of Tanganyika (now Tanzania). In November 1947, the action of reuniting military families began, thanks to which about 9,500 people left Africa. [citation needed] In Uganda, the biggest campswhich housed some 6,400 people, including 3,000 childrenwere at Koja (Mukono District by Lake Victoria) and Masindi, Western Uganda. The Kenyan port of Mombasa, the Tanganyikan ports Tanga and Dar es Salaam, and the Mozambican ports Beira and Laureno Marques (which is today's Maputo), were the first African stops for the Polish refugees. Cross and residents of Bombay Iranian capital camp at Santa Rosa, near the city Len. Complete, because that divided several eastern European the Eucharistic Crusade lived in twenty barracks built of clay of and. 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