He was born on the 14th of February 1875 in the Croatian village of Brlog near the town of Otočac. Arseniusz Lalič, his wife Maria née Brestak and his son Władysław met a fate known to many generations of Poles. They were deported on the 10th of February 1940 to Noszul-Baza in the Komi Republic, where Maria and Arseniusz died. Only their son returned to Poland, having been released from exile on the 27th of August 1941.
Jadwiga née Jarka Cooper, one of our most colourful Auckland Polish community members, died peacefully on Wednesday, 12 June 2024, aged 96.
Mrs.Jadzia and her younger brother, Janek, were among the 733 Polish children who arrived in Wellington with their 105 caregivers on the 31st of October 1944, after the New Zealand government invited them to see out the remainder of the war in a peaceful country. Their father, Stanisław Jarka, a detective in the Białystok Police Department before the war, was among the more than 22,000 Poles shot by Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) in western Russia in 1940 in what came to be known as the Katyń massacres.