:: Lost? | Can't find something on this website? Find it ... Click here |
| | Borderland Voices has a unique connection with its local Polish community.
The book and exhibition telling the Staffordshire-Polish story emerged from the discussions and workshops organised by the group with folk still living in this part of the world.
Polish come to Leek
The terrible years of the Second World War were sometimes at their most terrible in Poland.
As, first, the Russians joined up with the Germans to invade the country, and then, after 1941, became Poland's most oppressive "allies", the experience of the ordinary Pole must have been almost unbearable.
As Poles fled the oppressor either to fight in Polish divisions within the British army or to refugee camps all over the world, they hardly knew what their future would be.
Unbelievably, about two thousand of them ended up, after the war, in an old army camp on Blackshaw Moor near Leek.
Living in primitive conditions, but safe - and free - they gradually built again a community.
The Polish Connection - a creative writing and digital technology project - recorded the experience of the Polish community from Blackshaw Moor of their post-war years.
The project has now resulted in an exhibition, touring round Staffordshire libraries this year (see our What's On pages for details), and a book of personal accounts. A Long Way From Home...
... is the name of the book of stories.
As our reviewer Mark Stewart discovered, the truth it contains is often hard to read.... A Long Way From Home... review
After 1945, some 140,000 displaced Poles were offered a home of sorts in Britain.
Despite the bravery of Poland in the war, many British were suspicious of these foreigners on their doorstep, and prejudice against these Catholic east Europeans was very high.
But, after the horrors of the war-time, the Poles who settled at Blackshaw Moor could suffer the prejudice, knowing that those previous horrors could not return.
This booklet of nearly sixty pages records the stories of nearly a dozen of those Polish folk, told in their own words.
It's almost unbelievable to hear how the Russians treated their neighbours.
As whole families were shipped to Siberia for doing nothing but being Polish, the trains they were herded into became nothing but freezing, living tombs.
On a journey of three weeks across Russia, people literally starved to death - even they didn't freeze first.
Some escaped - however to uncertain lives. Strangely, some Poles ended up in refugee camps as far away as Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) or Persia (today's Iran).
America refused to accept the exiles, and, again bizarrely, it was Mexico that offered some refuge.
And so to England. The state of these refugees, ill-fed and thin, must have been pitiful to behold. But in these accounts, the men and women forced themselves to find work, to create homes, to build churches.. And finally, finally, to begin lives again.
To read these simple but powerful memories of life in wartime Poland, and then here, is very moving - and a tribute to how the human spirit can survive.
MS
A Long Way From Home is available from Leek Library or from Borderland Voices at £5 per copy. Borderland Voice's address is:- Ball Haye Cottage, The John Hall Garden, Fowlchurch Road, Leek, Staffs ST13 6AT |
Memories
If you too have memories of the Polish experience, we'd love to hear from you and record your thoughts on our talk-board.
See Polish Experience Talk
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites |
|
