Urszula Dąbrowska
‘My grandfather’s grave is in Poland, my father was killed in Katyn, my mother died in Iran, my sister – in the United States, and I will be buried in New Zealand’ – these words by Andrzej Rybiński were written on the window of one of the shops in Pahiatua. Eighty years ago, the town took in 733 Polish children fleeing Siberia.
In shop windows in the centre of this New Zealand town, with a population of less than 3,000, there are also testimonies of other young Poles rescued from the Soviet Union, known here as the ‘children of Pahiatua’. Shops, car and hair salons, restaurants and offices were decorated with red and white flags and balloons.
‘It is deeply moving that everyone here remembers that this is an important story not only for the Polish community, but also for New Zealanders,’ says Barbara Pawlikowska from Christchurch, who took part for the first time in the celebrations held every five years to commemorate New Zealand’s welcoming of Polish children from Soviet labour camps. She couldn’t hide her emotion when the locals in the bar offered her coffee and cake – ‘for Polish people – for free.’
The three-day celebrations were nationwide in scope. The New Zealand media published articles describing the fate of Polish children who, on 30 October 1944, arrived on the USS General George M. Randall on the North Island after a murderous journey from the Soviet Union through Iran and India, among other places. It was the largest group of migrants ever to arrive in New Zealand.
Today, those who came ashore back then are in their 80s and older. Not everyone was able to attend the celebrations. Over 30 of them attended a Polish Mass celebrated in a church in the capital city of Wellington. In Pahiatua, where the main celebrations took place, there were only a dozen or so. However, the local school couldn’t fit everyone who came. The families of those who were saved showed up: kids, grandkids, great-grandkids – over 300 people. The Polish community in New Zealand currently numbers around 4,000 people.
The celebrations, full of Polish elements, began with a Maori ritual, which consisted of singing to invite guests into the hall. ‘Welcome home’ was also first said in Maori, and was then repeated many times in both English and Polish. Because Pahiatua is also known in New Zealand as Little Poland.
The Polish shelf
The celebrations were also attended by volunteers (five from Poland, from Białystok, and three from New Zealand) from the project ‘Poles in New Zealand – research, digitisation and sharing of private archives’, implemented by the Cultural Education Association ‘Widok’. The team visited New Zealand for the second time. Last year, they presented photographs by Bolesław Augustis – a pre-war photographer from Białystok who settled in New Zealand but remained unknown in his new homeland – to the Polish community. Volunteers also conducted a reconnaissance of the photographic archives of Poles living there.
‘This year, we also brought photographs with us – this time, photographs of Augustis from his New Zealand period, and again – for photographs,’ says Grzegorz Dąbrowski, an expert on photographic archives from ‘Widok’. ‘We had already selected three archival collections for digitisation, but we unexpectedly came across new collections, including in Pahiatua.’
In a small local museum, two rooms are dedicated to the ‘children of Pahiatua’. There you can see memorabilia and documents, children’s notes and their thank-you letters. After what they went through in the gulags, most of them remember the camp as a paradise, even though it was built on the site of a former internment camp. In the Maori language, the name of the town can be translated as ‘the place where God rests’.
‘In one of the display cases, we found photos of the Zazulak sisters. Five girls were deported on 10 February 1940 from their home in Czarnokońce, near Tarnopol. Their mother died in Sybir, but they survived and, after a year in Iran, ended up in New Zealand,’ says Dąbrowski. ‘The eldest, Maria, married Bolesław Augustis. He came to visit her in 1949, after being demobilised from Anders’ Army.’ Towards the end of her life, Maria wrote a memoir of several pages, which ends with the sentence: ‘I am glad Bolek was in my life.’
The ‘Widok’ Association has been looking after Augustis’ collection for over 20 years and reconstructing his life story. Here is another piece of the puzzle. In Auckland, the volunteers were invited to tea at the home of his son, Staszek. On the honourable ‘Polish’ shelf in the living room are two albums with photos of Bolek, published in Białystok by the ‘Widok’ Association.
Suitcase with photo albums
In addition to the main celebrations in Pahiatua, the Polish community also organised anniversary events in other places. The Polish Association in Auckland held a meeting on 20 October. During the event, its president, Nina Tomaszyk, reminisced about her mother, Krystyna Tomaszyk, and her grandmother, Krystyna Skwarko, who were extremely important figures for the local Polish community. Nina’s grandmother was a pre-war teacher who was deported to Sybir (to Krasnoyarsk). After the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement was signed, she organised childcare for Polish orphans, first in Iran (she was the headmistress of a Polish school in Isfahan) and, from autumn 1944, in Pahiatua, New Zealand. She was deported together with her son and daughter Krystyna from Sokółka near Białystok (her former home is now a popular ice cream parlour). Both Krystynas (Nina’s mother and grandmother) wrote books about their wartime and post-war experiences.
The Tomaszyk/Skwarko family photo collection is a unique historical document. Nina agreed to make her part publicly available on the Internet – on the albom.pl website and in the media of the Sybir Memorial Museum in Białystok, but under certain conditions. Her mother made her aware that the ‘children from Pahiatua’ should not be called refugees. ‘They were invited here as guests,’ she emphasises. She also finds the terms Sybiracy and Sybiraczki problematic. They sound wrong to her. ‘They were Poles who found themselves in Siberia not by choice, but through force and coercion. It was never their place. They should not carry this stigma, she says.
She arrived at the meeting with the volunteers carrying a suitcase full of documents and photo albums, until now carefully kept as private keepsakes. Now, after a family consultation, she decided that they were part of Polish heritage and should be shared. The albums contain unique photographs from Isfahan and Pahiatua, depicting everyday life, but also celebrations, visits by dignitaries and the staff. Among the documents was also the diary of little Krysia with drawings and entries made by her friends during their many months in Isfahan, Iran. They show that while the war was raging, girls, just like at any other time, simply wanted to have fun.
On the reverse side, the inscription ‘Dad’
In Wellington, the Polish team met up with Zbigniew Popławski, the 80-year-old owner of one of the collections selected for digitalisation. He is one of the ‘children of Pahiatua’ who ‘made it’. Although this is not an accurate description, as he worked hard for his success. In a New Zealand documentary from the late 1950s, he appears alongside other Poles who contributed to the development of their adopted homeland, including a pilot, a businessman, a farmer and an artist. In the black-and-white film, he is wearing a white coat, walking with a confident stride, pinning an X-ray to the board and examining it intently over his glasses. He became a highly esteemed surgeon. But when we sit down in Wellington to chat and copy his archive photos, he is reticent about his career. Looking at old photographs, he pauses longest at portraits of his aunt, whom he has called Mummy all his life, and her son Wojtek, his playmate and friend.
His life story can be found in a book dedicated to ‘the children of Pahiatua’ entitled The World’s Largest Family by Dr Tomasz Danilecki from the Sybir Memorial Museum. This is also the result of last year’s visit by social archivists to the other side of the world. ‘In April 1940, Zbyszek was just two years old, but one earliest picture from his childhood stuck in his memory like a photograph: the image of his grandmother Zosia lying on the table. He remembered this scene because in his house nobody could even sit on the table, let alone lie down,’ you can read in the book. ‘It was only many years later that he understood the scene: it was 13 April, when Soviet soldiers intruded into the house to deport the family to Siberia. Grandma knew very well what this intrusion meant. She was born in Siberia into the family of a January insurgent, deported there by the tsarist authorities in the second half of the 19th century. She got out of there after the Bolshevik Revolution. Why was she lying on the table? She was laid on it because she suffered a heart attack and died when the Soviets forced their way into the house.’ Zbyszek’s mum wasn’t home that night, so the Soviets took him away together with his aunt, Jadwiga Michalik, her two sons (of whom the younger one soon died in Kazakhstan) and his now widowed grandfather (he died in Teheran). After four years of ‘hard labour’, my aunt, together with her two surviving children: Wojtek and Zbyszek ended up in New Zealand. Here they started a new life. After the war, Zbyszek found his mother in Poland. But before he could earn enough money to travel and see her, she died. Today he says he had two mums.
‘Without this story, the photographs don’t say much, but without the photographs, it’s difficult to see the reality and details of that time. The characters are given faces,’ says Rafał Siderski, who was responsible for digitalisation in the project.
On the back of one photograph showing a family in front of their house, there is a yellow sticky note with the handwritten word ‘Dad’ and a number. It looks as if someone was trying to identify who his father was among the smiling group. Zbigniew Popławski does not remember his father either. In the autumn of 1939, when the family was trying to escape from Warsaw to their family estate in Janopol in the east, the Soviets arrested the father, a reserve officer. The family never saw him again. Everything indicates that he was killed in Katyn.
It could serve as the basis for a PhD
The collections of the Polish House in Wellington contain many similar dramas, but they also record more recent history. The house at 257 Riddiford Street has been operational since 1956 (it used to be a bakery). There is probably no Pole in New Zealand who has not participated in the nativity plays, concerts or Christmas markets organised there. Many Poles born on the other side of the world fondly remember performing in a folk dance group (the wreaths resembled Maori headdresses) or singing Polish songs together (the anthem of the local Polish community is ‘Jak dobrze nam zdobywać góry’ [How good it is to conquer mountains]; perhaps it reflects the youthful enthusiasm of the children of Pahiatua, who grew up surrounded by wild nature).
Over seven decades, many papers and memorabilia donated by members of the Polish community have piled up in the building’s warehouses. There are documents from the Polish school, reports from meetings and visits by dignitaries. It also houses a large library where you can find rare items (e.g. books that were given to children in Iran who were leaving for New Zealand by ship). ‘We have managed to digitalise all issues of “Wiadomości Polskie,” which chronicle Polish community events since the 1950s, but the rest still needs to be reviewed and processed,’ says Elżbieta Rombel, president of the Polish Association in New Zealand, looking anxiously into the warehouse where piles of papers are stacked high.
Prof. Wojciech Śleszyński, director of the Sybir Memorial Museum and fellow traveller, spent long hours flipping through worn binders, leafing through photo albums and notebooks. ‘It’s unfamiliar ground,’ he jokes, but admits that for a historian, it’s a real treasure. ‘You could write a very interesting doctoral thesis by researching this material. Or even more than one.’ However, historians should hasten their efforts, as the Polish House in Wellington is in poor condition. The building was damaged by an earthquake. According to the board of the Polish Association in New Zealand, it is too large, difficult to heat, and damp inside. ‘We are thinking of selling it,’admits Elżbieta Rombel.
The following evening, Irena Lowe, a member of the Association and co-author of the Kresy-Syberia website, organised a meeting for Poles from Wellington and volunteers from Poland. She invited more than 20 people to her house. Irene admits that they rarely get together in such a large line-up. It was a bring-and-share – everyone brought something along. Everyone talked about their connections to Poland and how they ended up here. Irena recounted the story of her mother, Eugenia Piotuch (married name Smolnicka):
‘She was a child. She was in hospital in Tehran and she knew she was dying. She was so emaciated that she even thought of death as a relief. Then a carer she knew from Uzbekistan visited her and said: “What are you doing? Get well and pull yourself together, because we’re leaving soon and we can’t go without you.” Those few words, someone’s attention and concern, the knowledge that she was not completely alone and indifferent to everyone, helped her recover and reach New Zealand.’
These words struck a chord with the Polish team. ‘The current situation is obviously incomparable, but the principle is similar. The support of people from Poland, their former homeland, helps the Polish community in New Zealand to stay together, to learn about their identity and to find out about their ancestors. This is particularly significant in a multicultural country where history does not play a major role. The friendly curiosity of people from the other side of the world makes us feel valued and gives us strength,’says, Urszula Dąbrowska, the project coordinator.
From the album of Irena Lowe: soldiers of the 2. Corps in Haifa. Head and tails Photo By Rafał Siderski.
As part of the project, volunteers registered over 700 archival photographs of Poles from New Zealand. In total, there are about 1,200 files stored on the hard drives of ‘Widok’, because the information on the back of some of the photos was just as important as the image itself. They were made available to the public, mainly in Poland. Perhaps they will spark friendly curiosity that will resonate in the other hemisphere?
Urszula Dąbrowska – a journalist, the President of the Cultural Education Association ‘Widok’
The collected materials and video from the trip are published on the website: https://albom.pl/. They have also been passed on to the Sybir Memorial Museum.
The ‘Poles in New Zealand – searching, digitizing and providing access to private archives’ project was supported by funds from the National Institute of Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad ‘Polonica.’ It was organised by the Cultural Education Association ‘Widok’ in cooperation with the Sybir Memorial Museum. The trip took place at the turn of October and November 2024.
Volunteers participating in the project: Elżbieta Rombel (president of the Association of Poles in New Zealand), Nina Tomaszyk (president of the Association of Poles in Auckland), Janina Goff (a Wellington Polish activist), Urszula Dąbrowska (coordinator, journalist), Grzegorz Dąbrowski (photograph, archivist), prof. Wojciech Śleszyński (historian, unversity lecturer, director of the Sybir Memorial Museum), dr Rafał Siderski (photograph, digitalisation expert), dr Tomasz Danilecki (historian, custodian, publicist).
Translated by Małgorzata Giełzakowska.