list of polish refugees in east africa and rhodesia

Warszawa Poland, The Archives of Audio-visual 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. However, after Yalta and the change in Polish borders this became an impossible dream, although a few did return to join their families in Poland. came to be known as the "City of Polish Children." World War Two: The deportation of Polish refugees to Abercorn camp in Northern Rhodesia. At first, they were transported to the town of Bandra, in the suburbs of Bombay, where Hanka Ordonwna took care of the kids. Korespondencja - sprawy prywatne i rodzinne (1949-1950, 1957). camps, the Nazis murdered from 15,003,000 to 31,595,000 people, most likely 20,946,000 men, women, handicapped, aged, sick, prisoners of war, forced laborers, camp inmates, critics, homosexuals, Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Germans, Czechs, Italians, Poles, French, Ukrainians, and many others. Dluga 7 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. Records. With a few days, Germany invaded Poland, triggering World War 2. Panstwowe w Rzeszowie But such isolation was not the norm in the rest of the camps in East Africa. As soon as their train drew in to Nairobi station they were met by members of the Polish Red Cross, the Polish Delegation, the Kenya Women's Emergency Organisation, and other officials, and were given refreshments. This site was spectacularly located on a peninsula jutting out into Lake Victoria. Houses made of clay, in the heart of Africa. The Polish migration to Africa has its roots in an event from August 1939. The State Archive in Rzeszw 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. Unlike the Soviet Union, these were, after all, ancient civilized cultures. Of all the research Durand undertook, one discovery made a great impression. 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. 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. 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). When they arrived they . The second group (726 refugees including 408 children, mostly orphans) to arrive on the USS Hermitage that fall were also quarantined, this time in a U.S. army camp near Los Angeles called Santa Anita. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. It triggered an amnesty for the Poles in the USSR. Gore Browne, expected around 500 Polish refugees to arrive from the Middle East. The Polish population, both civilian and military, was evacuated to Iran from the Soviet Union in two stages from March to September 1942. In the first stage, more than 30,000 military personnel and about 11,000 children left Krasnovodsk (Turkmen SSR, present-day Turkmenistan) by sea for Bandar Pahlavi. The children and the adults were then transported to the North Island, to a town of Pahiatua, where Polish Children's CampPahiatuawas opened in former military barracks. The largest of these settlements were: in the Union of South Africa Oudtshoorn; in North Rhodesia Abercorn, Bwana M'Kubwa, Fort Jameson, Livingstone, and Lusaka; in South Rhodesia Digglefold, Marandellas, Rusape, and Gatooma. 23sm. Western Poland during the massive population exchanges following A commandant usually a British official stood at the head of the administration of each of the settlements. Indeed, parts of this region are dotted with monuments and graves of foreign soldiers who fought and died in these parts. On the left, smiling and with her arms crossed that was my grandmother," says Durand. In addition to the permanent settlements, several temporary camps were created, including in Morogoro, Kigoma, Dar es Salaam, Iringa and Tosamaganga in Tanganyika. 2022. czerwiec. [5], The evacuation of the Polish people from the USSR lasted from March 24, 1942, for one week, and then again from August 10, 1942, until the beginning of September. Ukrains'ki hovirky u Pol'shi. South Africa, South Rhodesia, and North Rhodesia also became the home of Poles. Unable to return to war-torn Poland, some 116,000 Polesliving in the Soviet Union were evacuated to Iran, which had been invaded by the Anglo-Soviet alliance. Korespondencja do cz?onkw rodziny (1945-1946). T.6. They went by ship to Dar es Salaam and via Kigoma to Mpulunga on Lake Tanganyika, and subsequently they went in groups to Abercorn by lorry. Jewish Ghetto Police were to arrest non-Jews who made purchases in stores exclusively designated for the Jews or brought merchandise or food with them. Pages available in the www.gov.pl domain may contain e-mail addresses. by Polish, British, American, and Iranian authorities soon improved their They were boys and girls aged 14 to 18, who while in Soviet Union were members of a scout organization of the Polish Army. Some exiles also found asylum in India in transit camps set up in Quetta, Mount Abu, Panchgani, Bandra, and in and near Karachi (such as the Country Club Camp, Haji Pilgrims Camp, and the Malir Camp). They also take time to tidy up the place by clearing the bush around the graveyard. Balachadi became a refuge for some 1,000 Polish children. Lesiv, Mykhailo. It included extortions, robberies and murders. 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. Among the victims on this altar of silence were the 14,500 prisoners of war interned in Kozelsk, Starobelsk, and Ostashkov and America. Some of them went on to emigrate to the United States, Argentina, Canada, France and Australia. Arrested Polish gentiles were to be turned over to the Germans for execution. In Kenya, the camps were located in Rongai (outside Nairobi), Manira, Makindu, Nairobi, and Nyali in Mombasa. In November 1947, the action of reuniting military families began, thanks to which about 9,500 people left Africa. At the end of 1944, there were 13,364 Polish citizens in three countries of East Africa, of which 6,331 in Tanganyika. There was a kindergarten, a men's school, a women's school, and a middle school. Several scout groups, schools, training centers, a Women's Auxiliary Service, and an Officers' Legion were established. T.5. Wymiana listw z instytucjami w Stanach At that time, the Poles were the largest minority of European origin in East Africa. Korespondencja w sprawie pomocy dla uchodzcw. LUDNO CYWILNA I SIEROTY POLSKIE PO AMNESTII 12 SIERPNIA 1941 ROKU. Northern Rhodesia had three camps. Polish Children's Camp was financed by the government of New Zealand, with help from Polish Government in Exile, based in London. Those who refused were persecuted, sent to jails; mothers were told that if they refused, they would be sent to labor camps and their children would end up at orphanages. Still, thousands of distraught Poles remained there, sent to kolkhozs. The date is May 2000 and it comes Korespondencja, m.in. There were already 22 camps, with 18,000 people who like us had gone through different places of exile in the USSR, scattered across British Africafrom Kenya to Cape Colony.[12]. They also murdered about 65,000 Poles in this terror.2, In one notorious massacre, in incredibly cold calculation, the NKVD-the Soviet secret police--systematically executed possibly 14,471 former polish officers, including political leaders, government officials, Often it was not accurate, especially as far as dates of birth. [20] According to official data, during the state-controlled expulsion between 1945 and 1946, less than 50 percent of Poles who registered for population transfer were given the chance to leave the westernmost republics of the Soviet Union. Podlesice Zivilarbeiterlager (public servants ul. In the Kidugala settlement, 798 Poles lived near the deserted post-German Protestant mission. Among them 1,000,000 were children under eighteen years of age 1. The expected end of the war limited further evacuations. The British agreed to evacuate Polish civilians from Iran and presented a plan for the placement of refugee settlements. PHOTO | UGANDA NATIONAL ARCHIVES. For many, the help provided by the United States and Great Britain was too little and too late. http://lemko.org/genealogy/addresses.htm, Records from the Central For two years, freight trains ferried entire Polish families across the greater Kresy region to Kazakhstan and luckily, over 110,000 Poles among them 36,000 women and children, managed to leave the Soviet Union with the Polish forces. Both settlements had hospital facilities run by Polish doctors and nurses. In South Africa alone there were 18 Polish schools with about 1,800 students in attendance. [2] There were four waves of deportations of entire families with children, women, and elderly people aboard freight trains from 1940 until 1941. "[12], In 1942, about 120,000 refugees from Poland began their exodus to Iran from remote parts of the Soviet Union. His grandmother's testimonies about her life in the small town of Tengeru in northern Tanzania motivated the filmmaker to embark on an emotionally charged nine-year journey that took him to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Union under the provisions of that tenuous "amnesty" of 1941. 68p. A Polish publication estimated that 556,000 Germans and Poles died in these territories from all causes during this period.30 The West German Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees, and War Victims calculated the loss from 1945 to 1950 as 1,225,000 for Germany's eastern territories.31 The German Statistisches Bundesamt in Wiesbaden put the number at 1,339,000 for just the former eastern territories32 Weighing a variety of such estimates, I calculate the dead for the eastern territories and old Poland as 415,000 to almost 3,100,000, probably around 1,600,000 Reich and ethnic Germans, as given in Table 12.1. Refugees in Poland were, until 2022, a relatively small group. recruited families willing to take in a hundred orphans. Finally, 733 Polish children with their 105 caretakers arrived in New Zealand on November 1, 1944. The Jewish population of 8,700,000 was trapped under the control of the Berlin government; at least sixty percent (or about 5,100,000) were exterminated by the Germans during World War II. ch.1, 1989; ch.2, 1990. This meant that all remaining Poles were re-granted Soviet citizenship and received Soviet passports. + Copies of insurance death claims from the Polish Roman Catholic Union of They then constructed temporary mud and thatch huts. The next groups arriving in October were directed to Tengeru, Kondoa, Ifunda and Kidugala. Ul. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from (Vydano u spivpratsi z Fundatsiieiu Doslidzhennia Lemkivshyny. Some had to travel by land to Ashgabat. 22sm. 492s. (1942-48) 7c Polish refugees in Africa (1942-50) 7d Polish refugees in Mexico (1943-47) 7e Polish refugees in New Zealand (1944-51) 8 Soviet Counterstrike. Language--U. Krakiv, 1995. obituaries and death notices found in the Dziennik Chicagoski, 1890-1971. Even before the 1941 deportations, it was already agreed that the evacuees were going to East Africa only for "a special or temporary purpose." executed in cold blood in Katyn, Kharkov, and Kalinin in April and May 1940. While still in Isfahan, 105 teachers, doctors, and administrative workers were selected, plus one priest, Father Micha Wilniewczyc, and two Roman Catholic nuns. Care had been taken in planning the settlement to avoid giving it the look of a military barracks. . First the exiles came out of Siberia in cattle cars, arriving at ports on the Caspian Sea. The service can provide the following: + A town or village location search and, if available, a brief area history. It was by this circuitous route that the Polish deportees arrived in Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe and other parts of British Africa to see out the rest of WWII. ul. Relatives of Polish exiles who died in Uganda where they had found refuge during WW2, refresh the tombstone. NKVD agents issued Soviet passports to Poles in February-May 1943. Shvaipol't Fiol'.24sm. The British did not have the intention of keeping the Polish refugees in East Africa when it was decided to take them there. Organisation and regulations of the camps in East Africa . In America, the date of the arrival of the first transport aboard the USS Hermitage (on June 25, 1943 consisting of 706 refugees, including 166 children) was a State secret. This utter lack of concern brought about a crisis of unimaginable proportions. Korespondencja w sprawie pomocy charytatywnej, zaproszenia Own farms were run. As elsewhere, kindergartens and grammar schools provided for the educational needs of the youngsters. [8], The fate of the deported Poles improved in mid-1942, after the signing of the SikorskiMayski agreement. Society volunteers offer a limited research service to members for a reasonable 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. (01.02.2019). of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, "euthanasia," starvation, exposure, Most of them lived in Uganda and Tanzania (then Tanganyika), a considerable number in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) and Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) and some in . People kept their own gardens, with vegetables. 3 prymirnyky. These journeys, often several weeks long, brought new suffering and tens of thousands died from hunger, cold, heat, disease and exhaustion on that trip to freedom. The best housing conditions were enjoyed by Poles settling in Ifunda 780 people lived in 100 brick houses concentrated in five districts, which had own kitchens, dining rooms, laundry rooms and warehouses. UNHCR's main objectives in Poland are to monitor access to territory and reception conditions as well as advocate for an efficient and protection-sensitive asylum system and related policies. After aggression of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the conclusion of SikorskiMaisky agreement in July 1941, when Poland and the Soviet Union became allies, authorities in Moscow allowed the Polish population to leave the place of exile. Hitler talked about the conquest and colonization of Poland. 00-263 Warszawa It is no longer just a footnote in history. The last Pole, Mr. Edward Wjtowicz, was buried in Tengeru in 2015. [15] The single man has not been traced; the woman, Josefa Bieronska, moved to South Africa with her children. Poles in Mexico were not allowed to leave their camps. Polish underground courts prosecuted traitors and criminals during the war. It took a while for Durand to understand why Africa seemed so familiar to him. From Poland, over Russia and Iran, to Africa. The costs of maintaining the settlements were covered by the British authorities towards the debt of the Polish government and the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare reporting to the government in exile in London. Home. In 1941, the tables were turned when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, forcing Russia to join the Allies. The listing of refugees is not complete, because new waves of refugees were constantly flowing in. Harvard University. well as for the formation of a Polish army on Soviet soil. T.4. The housing was primitive: dwellings made of clay, with roofs made of grass and banana leaves. Here is the other matching map to the West. A protocol of the Polish-Soviet (Sikorski-Maisky) agreement of For the plight of Poles who remained in the Soviet interior until the defeat of Germany, see Polish population transfers (194446) and the population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine. The second camp was established at Koja in Mukuno district about 100 kilometres east of Kampala, the Ugandan capital and about 35 kilometres from Mukono railway station. After the completion of the evacuation, there were over 110,000 Polish citizens in Iran. We were very poor, there were no jobs, kids had their classes in the open, there were no books." A one-time Amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union was declared by Stalin. amnesty etc. Fundatsiia Sv.Volodymyra, . is the first part of Prof. Piotrowski's lecture on the subject of deportations, This operation was complicated, time-consuming and cost-intensive, especially in the conditions of the ongoing war. Six years of war brought many changes to familiar festive rituals. 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. And graves of foreign soldiers who fought and died in these parts SIEROTY PO... Festive rituals and Kalinin in April and May 1940 in the heart Africa! To Abercorn camp in Northern Rhodesia Uganda where they had found refuge during WW2, refresh the tombstone that. Camps were located in Rongai ( outside Nairobi ), Manira, Makindu, Nairobi, and Rhodesia... Africa with her arms crossed that was my grandmother, '' says.... Provisions of that tenuous `` amnesty '' of 1941 mud and thatch huts in cattle cars arriving... Of 1941 began, thanks to which about 9,500 people left Africa many, the help provided by the of. 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