list of polish refugees in east africa and rhodesia
Due to financial reasons, it was decided to limit the number of Polish settlements, leaving only two in Tengeru (Tanganyika) and Koja (Uganda). 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. about one in ten of all adult males,1 and murdered. In August 1945, the number of Polish refugees in Northern Rhodesia was 3,419, of which . All are eager to help the Allied Cause in any way possible. By the end of 1945, another 4,300 were evacuated to Lebanon; by 1946, that number rose to 6,000. Hankiewicza 1 But such isolation was not the norm in the rest of the camps in East Africa. Polish underground courts prosecuted traitors and criminals during the war. Fundatsiia Sv.Volodymyra, . http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP7.ADDENDA.HTM, The Soviets arrested and ch.1, 1989; ch.2, 1990. He reveals them in his book "Flight Across the Sea." (03.06.2019), Polish tractor maker Ursus signed a huge contract with Tanzania's National Service Corporation Sole. 68p. http://www.mapywig.org/m/wig500k/MAPA_POLSKI_1_500_000_PRZEMYSL_12_WYDANIE_LOTNICZE.jpg The arrival of the Polish 4.3 . When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. 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. Subject: UKRAINIANS IN POLAND Contact our Media sales & Licensing team about access. The resulting film, "Memory is our Homeland," won the Audience Award at the Montreal International Film Festival in 2019. Approximately 600 Polish refugees were taken to Abercorn in contingents. the Poland - Soviet Union Border during 1945 -1950 Snakes and other natural perils were commonplace. [4][6], In 1939, following Nazi German and Soviet attack on Poland, the territory of the Second Polish Republic was divided between the two invaders. In all, 16 Polish schools were attended by some 2,300 Polish children in India. At its peak, Koja accommodated around 3,000 Polish refugees. 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). "I recognized the hospital and a group of young girls walking toward the camera. (16.06.2016), Many European countries want to restrict migration with stricter border controls and more deportations. 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. imprisoned about 500,000 Poles during 1939-1941, including former officials, The little known story of the Polish refugees who fled to East Africa during World War II. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, "euthanasia," starvation, exposure, And the most infamous German death camps had been located in Poland. America. They were boys and girls aged 14 to 18, who while in Soviet Union were members of a scout organization of the Polish Army. [1] It can come as a surprise, however, that an Africanist from Germany has authored the first English-language study of the Polish refugee camps in colonial British Africa. Among people who stayed there was Bogdan Czaykowski. By. There were definitely Jews among the evacuees. 21sm. World War II. The expected end of the war limited further evacuations. By clicking an e-mail address provided as a link, you consent to the processing of your data (e-mail address and other data provided on a voluntary basis in the message) in order for the recipient to send a response to the submitted questions. In my view, this toll is the direct and indirect responsibility of the new Polish government (although aided, abetted, and promoted by the Soviets), as I will establish in the next section. Relatives of Polish exiles who died in Uganda where they had found refuge during WW2, refresh the tombstone. Poles did not stay in the Soviet-controlled Iran for long for several reasons, including the hostility of Soviet authorities who occupied northern Iran (see Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran), as well as the threat from the German armies that had already reached the Caucasus (see Case Blue), and finally due to poor living conditions.[13]. Elated by this turn of events the far-flung Polish exiles began to make their way as best they could southward, to where Anders' army was forming, in the hope of liberation. http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/archiwum.html, If you know that you had relatives that were buried in the Przemysl area in Poland this link may help: http://www.cmentarzeprzemysl.pl/, In 1950 there was a border adjustment in the area 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. Maria Gabiniewicz spent six years in Africa, at a camp in Bwana Mkubwa, Northern Rhodesia: "To us, it all looked like a scene from Henryk Sienkiewicz's book In Desert and Wilderness. Nothing looked like Poland, but adults in our camp did their best to emphasize our roots. the deportees until the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany on June The second wave of deportations by the Soviet occupational forces across the Kresy macroregion, affected 300,000 to 330,000 Poles, sent primarily to Kazakhstan. The last Pole, Mr. Edward Wjtowicz, was buried in Tengeru in 2015. Many lived in communes and camps until the early 1950s before finding permanent homes in North America, Europe, Australia and to a lesser extent, South Africa. Maria Gabiniewicz, one of the refugees, later wrote: "We managed to leave the Soviet Union in the last transport. http://www.pgsa.org/membership.htm Dluga 6 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. Here is the other matching map to the West. 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 3,635 Poles were housed in six small villages. But Iran proved unable to care for such large numbers of refugees, causing the British government to move Polish civilians to other British colonies. 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. The first contingents of Polish refugees in World War Two 3.3. A small proportion of refugees, especially the Polish, was also absorbed into White society after the war. The main route led through Turkmenistan to the Pahlevi transit camp in Iran (now Bandar-e Anzali) and from there mainly to camps in Tehran. Migration to and from countries in Southern Africa 1 is driven largely by the pursuit of economic opportunities, political instability and increasingly, environmental hazards. It was a hellhungry, sick people, children in rail cars, filled with louse. By the end of 1943, 33,000 refugees were transferred from Iran to other countries. Shelved under: Naukove Tovarystvo im.Shevchenka. Care had been taken in planning the settlement to avoid giving it the look of a military barracks. 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. List: Red Cross Polish Refugees The list of Polish refugees residing in areas of East Africa and Rhodesia was prepared by the Polish Red Cross in Nairobi in 1943. Classes began on September 1, 1942. After twelve days, we reached the port of Beira in Mozambique. page http://www.archiwa.gov.pl/, PIASA: http://www.piasa.org/polisharchives.html Korespondencja do cz?onkw rodziny (1945-1946). The listing of refugees is not complete, because new waves of refugees were constantly flowing in. Try roky tr'okhlittia Arkhypastyrs'koi pratsi Ilariona, Arkhyiepyskopa Kholms'koho i Pidlias'koho. This was a small fraction of the approximately 1.7 million Polish citizens who had been arrested by the Soviets at the beginning of the war. 22, 1941. centr. Marunchak, Mykhailo (1914). The contract was Ursus' third deal in Africa, a market that many Polish entrepreneurs are looking to boost. The State Archive in Rzeszw Just in the city of Bydgoszcz, for example, Germans murdered about 10,000 non-Jewish civilians in four months of occupation. At that time, the Poles were the largest minority of European origin in East Africa. 1 November 1944. Korespondencja w sprawie pomocy dla uchodzcw. Among the deportees 52 percent were Poles, 30 percent were Jews, and 18 percent were Ukrainians and Byelorussians. The resettlement from Abercorn was called Operation Polejump. The refugees finally left Iran after a few months, and were transported to a number of countries, such as Lebanon, Mandatory Palestine, India, Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Mexico. "They were young, and these intercultural encounters have shaped their humanity.". In October 1942, the Director of War Evacuees and Camps of Northern Rhodesia, Gore Browne, expected around 500 Polish refugees to arrive from the Middle East. 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. The [following] article Union under the provisions of that tenuous "amnesty" of 1941. Check with Polish Archives for birth records, Polish army records. From Poland, over Russia and Iran, to Africa. (Vydano u spivpratsi z Fundatsiieiu Doslidzhennia Lemkivshyny. In Tanganyika, the largest settlement was Tengeru (4,000 refugees) and smaller camps were located in Kigoma, Kidugala, Ifunda, Kondoa, and Morogoro. Each slice of bread had to be stolen or gotten in any other way. My mother refused the tempting offer of going to Santa Rosa in Mexico. During the two great evacuations (the first, between March 24 and the beginning of April 1942; the second, between August 10 and September 1, 1942), from Krasnovodsk across the Caspian Sea to Pahlavi (Iran), and the smaller overland evacuations from Ashkhabad to Mashhad (in March and September 1942), about 115,000 people (including some 37,000 civilians, of whom about 18,300 were children) left the Soviet Union. Moreover, several Polish periodicals were published, Polish amateur theaters were founded, and Polish business enterprises flourished. amnesty etc. Polish-American archives: http://wilson.ctstateu.edu/lib/archives/polish/ About 700,000 Poles were sent to Germany for forced labor,6 many to die there. 8a Soviet reoccupation of the Borderlands (1944-45) 8b Repatriation (1944-47) The British did not have the intention of keeping the Polish refugees in East Africa when it was decided to take them there. 11 Perhaps no more than a couple of hundred thousand Poles lived there as well.12.