Witold Chmielewski
The departure from the Soviet Union of General Anders’ Army and nearly 40,000 Polish civilians who had been deported there in 1940–1941 created the need to settle these people for the duration of the war. Over 18,000 children and adolescents were evacuated from this ‘inhuman land’, nearly 1,500 of whom found their way to Mexico.
From Sybir to Mexico
Many Polish refugees were sent to India, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa (Uganda, Tanganyika, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, Union of South Africa). In the fall of 1944, 834 people arrived in New Zealand. Earlier, in the second half of October 1942, the British proposed that the Poles should be temporarily settled in Mexico. The possibility of directing around 23,000 refugees to this country was considered by the British, Polish and Mexican authorities. Talks about this issue were conducted, being finalized in December 1942, when General Władysław Sikorski signed a contract with the Mexican authorities regarding accepting as many as 28,000 refugees. It quickly turned out that due to transport issues only 5 to 10 thousand people could be taken to Mexico. The United States declared that it was ready to offer the Polish government the broadest possible financial help regarding covering the costs of transportation and maintaining the refugees in Mexico and to cooperate in terms of care itself on the territory of Mexico. The United States kept this promise. From the budget of the President of the US, three million dollars were allocated for the needs of Polish refugees in Mexico. To settle them, a place was chosen that was appropriate in terms of climate. The choice was an estate in Santa Rosa, located 5 kilometres from the city of Leõn in Guanajuato state. The area intended for a Polish settlement consisted of 14 hectares, on which there were a few buildings. After some necessary renovation and adaptation works, the facility was prepared to welcome its future inhabitants.
On 21 April 1943, in a transit camp for Polish refugees called Country Club – in tents on the desert, over a dozen kilometres from Karachi in India (now Pakistan) – recruitment of refugees willing to leave for Mexico began. On 13 May, volunteers for this long journey were taken in Red Cross field ambulances to a ship named “Old City of London”. They travelled to Bombay, where they transferred to a big ship named USS “Hermitage”, which had previously been used to transport soldiers. The Polish consul in Bombay, Henryk Stebelski, was appointed as supervisor of the group. Education was organized for the children and youths on the ship, undertaken by a group of Polish teachers under the supervision of Zofia Orłowska. On its way, the ship stopped in Australia and New Zealand, where soldiers from these countries disembarked. Poles, especially children, received numerous gifts, including clothes and sweets.
On American soil
On 25 June 1943, the refugees arrived in Los Angeles, where they were very warmly welcomed by the Polish diaspora in America, after which they travelled by train to Mexico, arriving in Leõn on 1 July. The Mexicans welcomed these tired outlanders from a faraway country with tears in their eyes. The president of Leõn spoke to the guests from Poland in very kind words and a military orchestra played. 706 refugees arrived in Santa Rosa in the first transport, including 540 adults and 166 children.
In the meantime, a second group of refugees was organised under the supervision of engineer Władysław Rattinger. It consisted of 726 people, including 408 children (two-thirds of the passengers were women and girls). They also travelled on USS “Hermitage”, setting off from Bombay on 16 September 1943. The ship stopped at Melbourne, Australia, and then at Bora Bora. On 24 October 1943, the refugees arrived in Los Angeles, and then Santa Rosa on 2 November, where a Mexican-flavoured ceremonial welcome awaited them at the railway station in Leõn. The orchestra played again and fireworks exploded with a loud bang. Some children were scared, thinking the war was starting all over again.
In the second group of incomers, there were many children from an orphanage in India called Władysław Sikorski’s Educational Institute (285 children and youths).
1,432 people arrived at Santa Rosa in total. Most of them were women and girls whose husbands, brothers and fathers were serving in the army. Only around 25% of all the citizens were part of complete families. Among the newcomers there were many farmers and settlers, and several dozen lower-level officials, public treasury employees, police officers and woodmen. The smallest group was the intelligentsia: 3 doctors, 3 pharmacists, 3 structural engineers, 2 agricultural engineers, 10 landowners, over a dozen teachers, and other people with secondary school education.
In July 1945, the citizens in the settlement had 352 individual rooms at their disposal, a church dedicated to Saint Rosa, an administration building, a theatre, education buildings, a hospital, workshops, a bakery, a laundry room, and three bathhouses. The standard of life of these refugees in Mexico was higher than those settled in Africa, India and Iran. For financial reasons and due to the changing political and military situation in Europe and the world, the idea of bringing another group of refugees to Mexico was abandoned.
At first, the settlement was run by Eric Philbrook Kelly from the USA, then by Bohdan Szmejko, a delegate of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy in London. The settlement’s administration consisted of a Social Department, Technical Department, Economic Department, Agricultural Department, Department of Cultural Work, and a Propaganda Department. Education was managed by Feliks Sobota, a delegate of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education.
The settlement was strongly supported, especially in financial matters, by Polish War Relief, managed by counsel Franciszek Xawery Świetlicki and representing the Polish diaspora in the USA. Support also came from American charity foundations, especially Catholic ones, mainly the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The Polish National Alliance was very committed, as was the Polish Women’s Alliance of America, the Polish Red Cross, and a lot of other organizations, institutions, and individual supporters. Help was also provided by the Polish diplomatic and consular corps of the USA and Mexico.
Healthcare played a very important role in the settlement’s life. Despite the passage of time, the consequences of hunger and the terrible living conditions in the labour camps and kolkhozes in Russia were evident, and Malaria was spreading among the refugees. There were around 200 disabled people at the settlement, some of them injured during the hostili-ties. All these people required careful medical care and, very often, psychological support. So, great efforts were made to provide good health care. A Health Department was estab-lished and a hospital was created, with separate wards for men and women (24 beds), and two wards for children (12 beds). A separate building was destined to be two isolation wards (10 beds each). 3 doctors and 17 nurses (initially, only two) took care of the patients. Some of the rooms were new, built especially for medical purposes. With good results, Polish doc-tors also treated Mexicans, who could use the health care services for free. The citizens of the settlement were admitted to the hospital in Leõn when needed. Polish War Relief fi-nanced 25 hospital beds and the provision of medicines and sanitary facilities for the settlement.
By the end of 1943, the Polish Embassy of the Second Polish Republic had formed a group of volunteers for the Women’s Auxiliary Service out of women living in Santa Rosa.
Save Polishness
Clergy played an important role in the life of the settlement. At different stages of its existence, various people of priesthood stayed there: a priest, two Marian fathers, a Franciscan, seven Felician sisters, and a Greek Catholic priest. The Felician sisters occupied a very useful role in the settlement’s life, especially in the matters of upbringing and childcare because they worked in every educational facility. The results of their work were also visible on the cultural field (library, choir).
Due to the age structure of the citizens of the settlement, upbringing and education were very important. A kindergarten for approximately 50 children was set up under the supervision of Florentyna Kulibaba and a huge primary school was created. Zofia Orłowska was the first principal, followed by Zygmunt Ejchorszt and Felician sister Maria Joanna D’Arc-Szczawiński. Lessons followed the syllabus from before World War One, according to Jędrzejewicz’s reform of 11 March 1932. In the first year of the school’s operation, 101 students were orphans and 258 were half-orphans. In the spring of 1944, of the 527 students of the primary school in Santa Rosa, 125 came from Volhynian Voivodeship, 80 from Lviv Voivodeship, 75 from Tarnopol Voivodeship, and 61 from Polesie Voivodeship. The least came from Poznań (1), Kielce (2), Kraków and Silesia (3 each).
There was a lower-secondary school in the settlement under the supervision of a Marian father, Józef Jarzębowski. On 28 September 1944, it was attended by 59 students, and 50 in December 1945. Vocational education was thriving: students were trained in the fields of dentistry, artistic silversmithing, tailoring and trade. The basic task of the schools in the settlement was not only tutoring children and youth but, more importantly, maintaining their national identity, thereby preventing them from losing it in exile.
The Polish Scout Association was functioning successfully in Santa Rosa, initially under the supervision of priest Zygmunt Jagielnicki, then under priest Józef Jarzębowski. Scouts held meetings regularly, also participating in the life of the settlement and during religious and national celebrations. An exchange of banners between Polish and Mexican scouts was a big event in the capital city of Mexico. The number of scouts and cub scouts was growing, consociating 250 people in total. Another two scout troops were created under the names of Queen Jadwiga and St. Theresa. In 1944, there were three girls’ scout troops and one boys’ scout troop.
The library was the pride of the settlement, holding around 14,000 books, mainly gifts from the Polish diaspora in the USA. It became one of the biggest Polish book collections in Latin America.
Where do you come from? – I don’t remember…
“General Władysław Sikorski” Orphanage was a place with an educational character. It was run first by Zygmunt Ejchorszt, then by Felician sister Maria Joanna D’Arc-Szczawiński. There were 88 orphans in the facility whose parents had died of exhaustion, cold and disease in the Soviet Union. Eleven children’s parents were in Poland, 72 children’s were in the army, and the parents of 94 or 97 were still in the USSR. Out of the total number of 268 orphans staying in the orphanage at the end of April 1944, most of them were from Volhynian (58) and Lviv (39) voivodeships, with a few more from Warsaw voivodeship (6). 34 children did not remember where they had lived before the war.
In the second half of 1945, due to the changing political situation in Poland and the world after World War II, the issue of closing the settlement arose. Most of its inhabitants did not want to return to their enslaved homeland, while others came from places that were now part the USSR. In response, the governors of the settlement, the Polish diaspora, American parliamentarians of Polish origin and Polish diplomats in the USA and Mexico connected with the Polish government in exile in an attempt to send at least some of the refugees to the United States. By 3 October 1946, 264 children from the orphanage, under the supervision of four Felician sisters and other guardians, left for the USA, paid for by Polish War Relief. Out of concern for maintaining their national identity, they were settled in care centres run by religious orders for the diaspora, and in communities where Polish teachers were available. Apart from the orphans, 284 other people went to the USA at the same time, and others were preparing to leave.
Moving up in the world from Santa Rosa
The refugees from Santa Rosa settled in Canada, Great Britain, South America and other countries. Several dozen people returned to Poland. In 1947, in Tlalpan, which is in the suburbs of Mexico City, Zofia Orłowska created an Orphanage for several dozen Polish Children, run by Polish teachers. In October 1952, the orphanage closed down. Zofia Orłowska went to the USA and then to Great Britain. (In 1959–1986, she was a Polish language teacher at Fawley Court near London. Her distinguished students included prof. Andrzej Suchcitz from the General Sikorski Polish Institute in London. She died at the age of 90 on 16 May 1995 in Fawley Court, where she is now buried).
At least 750 Santa Rosa pupils went to the USA. Until recently, they regularly held meetings in the Chicago area.
Witold Chmielewski is a professor at Academia Ignatianum in Cracow
All illustrations and photographs come from Author’s collection
Translated by Agnieszka Glińska