I will never forget the journey on trucks through the mountains from Ashgabat to Tehran. Here's a map that shows Houses made of clay, in the heart of Africa. W arsaw, P oland The refugee center that Dr. Tade Daniel Omoshoto set up in a southwestern residential neighborhood of Warsaw doesn't look like much . Organisation and regulations of the camps in East Africa . 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. These exiles found temporary refuge in Iran, India, Palestine, New Zealand, Mexico and British East and Southern Africa. On the left, smiling and with her arms crossed that was my grandmother," says Durand. Balachadi became a refuge for some 1,000 Polish children. well as for the formation of a Polish army on Soviet soil. 3 prymirnyky. By genocide, the murder From Poland, over Russia and Iran, to Africa. In Palestine, the camps for the over 5,000 refugees transferred there were located in Nazareth, Rehovot, Ain-Karem, and Barbara. The Polish migration to Africa has its roots in an event from August 1939. Here is the other matching map to the West. Copies of By the end of 1945, another 4,300 were evacuated to Lebanon; by 1946, that number rose to 6,000. Subject: UKRAINIANS IN POLAND It is no longer just a footnote in history. Among people who stayed there was Bogdan Czaykowski. 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. 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. Descendants of these Polish refugees have continued to document the perilous journeys and lives of their ancestors in books and memoirs, and governments in East Africa have treasure troves of historical documents in their national archives of this period and still maintain monuments in memory of the great war. Historian Erik Lindner takes a long look back to discover answers to this question. 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. obituaries and death notices found in the Dziennik Chicagoski, 1890-1971. The Polish migration to Africa has its roots in an event from August 1939. Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwow Parstwowych (NDAP) 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. Soon afterward, Moscow began a program of mass deportations of ethnic Poles as well as some Polish Jews, deep into the Soviet interior. T.4. 68p. Ukrains'ki hovirky u Pol'shi. Several scout groups, schools, training centers, a Women's Auxiliary Service, and an Officers' Legion were established. Warszawa Poland, The Central Archives of Historical Language--U. N'iu Iork, Paryzh, 1990. concerns and construction projects in Southern Rhodesia. The housing was primitive: dwellings made of clay, with roofs made of grass and banana leaves. signed in the presence of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, used the According to a January 15, 1943, note from Beria to Stalin, 389,041 Polish citizens were freed as a result of that "amnesty.". POLISH REFUGEES IN EAST AFRICA, 1942-1946 description Object description Kenya Women's Emergency Organisation helpers looking after the large party of refugee women and children. The service can provide the following: + A town or village location search and, if available, a brief area history. ch.1-4, 1988; ch.1-2, 1989; ch.1-2, 5-6, 1990; 8, 1994. 00-202 Warszawa 8s. A number of such executions actually took place in Konin and other localities. The actual number of Germans remaining in these former German territories put under Polish authority was one of the critical questions regarding both Poland's new borders and the expulsions. 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. There was also a simple apprenticeship system for the youth. They worked as farmers, and their first transport came through India in October 1943 with 720 people, most of them women and children. Young Polish women living in exile in Uganda in the 1940s, as the Second World War raged in Europe. 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. By the end of September 1942, 1,044 people were located in the Ugandan settlement in Masindi, and 510 and 401 respectively in Morogoro and Kondoa in Tanganyika. Also: Language. He predicted that 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 would have to be expelled,14 which is close to thesubsequent 10,000,000 estimate of the West German government. The Polish representative to the Potsdam conference claimed there were only 1,500,000, the United States estimated 2,000,000. . Some had to travel by land to Ashgabat. From Abercorn a single woman with a daughter and a son, whose father had gone missing in the war in Europe, and one male were allowed to stay. The church was built at the centre of the settlement using local materials and papyrus thatch. Marunchak, Mykhailo (1914). As a history student, he was surprised about the lack of information about Poles seeking sanctuary in Africa his professor had never heard of Polish refugee camps on the continent. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from Arrested Polish gentiles were to be turned over to the Germans for execution. Own farms were run. PHOTO | UGANDA NATIONAL ARCHIVES. The Poles living in the settlements in the then Tanganyika formed well-organized communities with an efficiently functioning educational system, cultural and sporting activities. http://www.videofact.com/english/samples/E_2/E19_part1.html. Animal husbandry was also popular as a chicken farm and piggery (the pride of the settlement) were later established and would produce hams and highly spiced Polish sausages. Society volunteers offer a limited research service to members for a reasonable The Poles in Africa were mostly disappointed with the result of the conference in Yalta, which led to the dependency of eastern Poland to the regime of Joseph Stalin, and they did not want to return to Poland ruled by communists controlled by the authorities in Moscow. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP7.ADDENDA.HTM, The Soviets arrested and There were no towns or villages nearby, only a small piece of land that had been cut out of the lush tropical forest. People kept their own gardens, with vegetables. centr. 22, 1941. t.3/4, 1995. These included 200,828 ethnic Poles, 90,662 Jews, 31,392 Ukrainians, 27,418 Belorussians, 3,421 Russians, and 2,291 persons of other nationalities. "[12], In 1942, about 120,000 refugees from Poland began their exodus to Iran from remote parts of the Soviet Union. Relatives of Polish exiles who died in Uganda where they had found refuge during WW2, refresh the tombstone. 3. Union under the provisions of that tenuous "amnesty" of 1941. Records. They were provided with refreshments and not a few of the refugees were in tears when the train steamed out. 00-263 Warszawa Adamem i Iza Zamoyskimi, Zofia, Janowa,Tarnowska, oraz w sprawach Thousands died along the way to centers of the newly formed Polish army, mostly due to an epidemic of dysentery that decimated men, women, and children.[10]. Ukrainian Korespondencja w sprawie pomocy dla uchodzcw. Christmas celebrations during theSecond World Waroften had to be scaled down or adjusted as restrictions and shortages took their toll. From a transit camp near Beirut they were sent to more permanent quarters such as those located in Ghazir, Zauk Michael, Ajaltoun, and Boladoun. Peter Fraser and Countess Wodzicka with Polish children (Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/2-003634-F) Over 800 Polish refugees seeking safety from war-torn Europe disembarked in Wellington. [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. Moreover, several Polish periodicals were published, Polish amateur theaters were founded, and Polish business enterprises flourished. For tens of thousands the Soviet Union became their final resting place before the war's end. Altogether, between 1942 and 1947, Polish schools in Palestine had 1,632 students. During the second evacuation, 69,247 persons left the Soviet Union, including 25,501 civilians (9,633 children). It lasted until 16 January 1943, at which point it was effectively revoked. In an official letter from the British Authorities it was said: "It has been agreed that the welfare work in the Polish settlements must continue and the minimum staff stays to ensure this must be retained." Ukraintsi v Rumunii, Chekhoslovachchyni, Pol'shi, Iuhoslavii. Language--U. Varshava, 1997. 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. 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 She hoped we would return to Poland some day. Poles in Mexico were not allowed to leave their camps. 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. Lelewela 4 And more. We were very poor, there were no jobs, kids had their classes in the open, there were no books." Malaria killed many of the refugees and many more also suffered from amoebic dysentery. As for what happened to those who never got out, God only Peredmova Vasylia Markusia) 403st. The main street of the camp was named after General Tadeusz Br-Komorowski. Lesiv, Mykhailo. the deportees until the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany on June Some of them went on to emigrate to the United States, Argentina, Canada, France and Australia. 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. At Isfahan Polish orphanage, a children's camp was opened, where 2,300 children and 300 adults stayed and eight elementary schools were created. http://lemko.org/genealogy/addresses.htm, Records from the Central To relieve ourselves, we had to jump out of the train whenever it stopped. There was a mast with a huge Polish flag, and the White Eagle on the gate."[12]. This thesis explores why the camp was built in such a remote area . Przemyslu Poland, The State Archive in Rzeszow Archiwum Wymiana listw z instytucjami w Stanach For many, the help provided by the United States and Great Britain was too little and too late. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/01/08/world/europe/ap-eu-poland-katyn-massacre.html?emc=eta1&_r=0, Then there were the Soviet deportations. One of the administrators lived in a building that also had a community centre where films were shown. If this site was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to keep it going. It was often their first contact with whites, he told DW. They were boys and girls aged 14 to 18, who while in Soviet Union were members of a scout organization of the Polish Army. Polish territory was occupied, so the government could only count on the Britons help in finding shelter for the population. 20sm. Bolicza 2, Addresses of Ukrainian First schools were opened in Tehran, where after one year there were ten Polish educational institutions. But Iran proved unable to care for such large numbers of refugees, causing the British government to move Polish civilians to other British colonies. Mexico. Zustrichi. It is not only near Poland's 500-kilometre border with Ukraine where citizens are keen to show their solidarity with the refugees. The [following] article Warszawa Poland, The Head Office of State Archives MINISTRY OF INFORMATION SECOND WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTION, Polish Refugees in India and East Africa, 1942-1946, Deportation of the Polish Population from the Soviet Occupied Part of Poland, 1940-1941, Evacuation of the 2nd Polish Corps from the Soviet Union to Persia and Palestine, 1942. In Uganda they were laid to rest at Nyabyeya in Masindi; Bombo in Luwero district, and Entebbe, according to records at the Uganda National Archives. Ul. Records The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. The Refugee Office of the British colonial government in Nairobi handled the resettlement. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February . Sea transports were sent to the transit camps in British India (the port of Karachi in todays Pakistan) and from there to the settlements in India, Africa, Mexico and New Zealand. South Africa, South Rhodesia, and North Rhodesia also became the home of Poles. In addition to the permanent settlements, several temporary camps were created, including in Morogoro, Kigoma, Dar es Salaam, Iringa and Tosamaganga in Tanganyika. The settlements in Koja and Tengeru ended their activities only in the second half of 1952. The details concerning processing of personal data by each unit can be found in their respective policies concerning the processing of personal data. There, all were divided into several groups and began their education. Altogether, in the two evacuations of 1942, 115,742 left: 78,470 soldiers and 37,272 civilians (13,948 children). west of L'vivin the Among the deportees 52 percent were Poles, 30 percent were Jews, and 18 percent were Ukrainians and Byelorussians. A few hundred people remained in Tanganyika. Living in Africa was very difficult for the Poles who were unfamiliar with local customs and languages and were not used to tropical weather. 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