POLES ARRIVE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21550, 1 November 1944, Page 4

POLES ARRIVE

OVER 6-40 ORPI lANS HAVEN IN DOMINION STORIES oT*HARDSHIP (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Nov. !. New Zealand lias given asylum to the first organised group of homeless people to reach this country from war-torn Europe. They are a party of 338 Polish children and adults who have at last found haven after enduring unimaginable hardships. They still show vestiges of their sufferings, too, despite the wonderful care shown them on their, journey. New Zealand greeted them with one of the mildest, loveliest and sunniest of spring days. Nearly all the party were living in eastern Poland till the shadows of war hung menacingly over their country. They had to flee from their homes and for their lives and were moved to Siberia and other parts of Russia. They were a very small and pitiful part of some 3.000,000 Poles swept remorselessly before the consuming tide of war. Later they were offered refuge in Persia, this group being selected at Teheran to come to New Zealand. During their homeless and almost ceaseless wanderings, parents and children became separated beyond hope of reunion. Parents died oi starvation or disease. Many children died too. tt was the survival of the fittest in the grimmest sense of the words, and so a tragic story, the full facts of which will never be told, went on. Adults Number 113 Many of the children of the party do not know whether their parents are alive or dead. Many never will know. There are 725 orphans or semi-orphans under 18 in the party. The youngest member is a child of 14 months and the eldest a woman of 72 years. There are 113 adults, including 42 school teachers, two doctors, a dentist and four tradesmen. Among the party are 38 single women and six single men. There are 19 families of two persons each. 21 families of three 10 families of four, six families of five and one family of • seven. Most of them have practically recovered, though not wholly, in physical condition. They have come to New Zealand as a self-contained colony and will plant a little piece of Poland in this Dominion at Pahiatua, where thev are to live.

The party includes 361 orphan girls and 260 orphan boys. They, will live in this country till the time is opportune for them to return to their native land and share effectively in the reconstruction of Poland. These Polish children have r.T been brought to New Zealand by chance or through hastily-improvised arrangement but through a plan sponsored and inspired by the Prime Minister, the Rl. Hon. P. Fraser. P was considered the very least New Zealand could do to help the grie-vously-stricken country. After r

party of Polish children had passed through New Zealand en route to Mexico and sanctuary the New Zealand Government decided to offer hospitality to a group of its own adoption. The Polish Ministry o f Social Welfare in London, of which Countess Wodzicki is the New Zealand delegate, handled the arrangements at the other end. A mother to the whole of the children on their journey was a Catholic sister who had served for 13 years in China—in Chekiang and Hunan, but was driven out when the Japanese took the mission.

Camps in Many Countries

She told a pitiful story of the hardships. Some of the refugees came of peasant stock and some from cities like Warsaw. Nearly : a million of the Poles who had Hed from their own country to escape the enemy hordes had perished of disease or starvation. The children of the party which had reached New Zealand had all known starvation. One woman, after being separated from her husband and travelling afar, had found him dead and buried two days earlier of typhus. She gathered her two daughters with her nad left on the long trail which brought them, now aged 17 and 18 respectively, with her to New Zealand. There are three sisters aged 9, 16 and 17 respectively whose mother died in Russia and whose father is fighting in Italy, as are the fathers of numbers of other children in the party. There is with them a priest who has felt the lash in an enemy prison. Most of the children have spent two years in Persia, where 100 of them were given refuge in a convent. Polish children are now settled in camp colonies in Mexico, Tanganyika, Konya, Uganda and India. The party which recently arrived in New Zealand will leave to-day by two special trains for Pahiatua, where they will go into occupation of the former internees’ camp. There buildings suitable to their requirements have been added of prefabricated materials surplus to military needs. Hutments have been provided for families to give them that privacy and particular social life which they have not enjoyed since they started their exile. Dormitories have been equipped for boys and girls and there are four community dining halls. Seven acres of garden will enable this new little Poland to become selfsupporting in vegetables. Over 20 classrooms have been provided and equipped so that the children can continue their interrupted education. The camp commandant will be Major P. Foxley.

The Polish children came to New Zealand recently with a large draft of men who had seen four years’ service in the Middle East, also many United States servicemen and nurses who had been fighting in Italy, China, Burma and India. There were a number of Chinese air pilots, so that it was an all-nations’ party.