Polish Camps in England after WWII: Polish Resettlement Bill and Beyond – by Agata Błaszczyk

Maja Trochimczyk, Agata Blaszczyk and Andrew Klees after their session, January 5, 2019, Chicago.

This is a brief summary of Agata Błaszczyk’s paper “The Foundations of the Polish Diaspora in Exile after World War II: Cultural Identity and Loyalty of the Polish Emigres in Resettlement” presented at the 76th Meeting of PAHA in Chicago in January 2019. Dr. Błaszczyk represents Polish University Abroad in London (PUNO), Polish Emigration Research Unit. The session also included papers: "For Us Americans of Polish Descent, War Broke out on September 1st, 1939": The Divided Loyalties of the Sienkiewicz Youth Circle - Andrew Kless, University of Rochester and "Defining Poland through Music: American Musical Celebrations of the Centennial of Poland’s Regained Independence" - Maja Trochimczyk, Moonrise Press, Los Angeles. An overview about musical celebrations of independence was posted on this blog last November: 
http://pahanews.blogspot.com/2018/11/concerts-to-celebrate-100th-years-of.html.

Agata Blaszczyk

   
The subject of my research is Polish immigration to post-War Britain and overseas. It portrays the Polish community’s rehabilitation in exile and the British government’s creation of a model migrant settlement policy for Polish refugees after 1946. It explains how Poles successfully integrated into mainstream British society and highlights the importance of education as their route to civic integration.

Ashby-Folville Manor and Nissen Huts

I investigate the question of national identity, national loyalty, cultivating national traditions, and retaining “Polishness” through the prism of resettlement. My study examines the political implications of the passage of the Polish Resettlement Bill in March 1947 (the first ever British legislation dealing with mass immigration) and how the original refugees formed much of the Polish community as it exists today.

A slide from Dr. Blaszczyk's presentation.

A good deal of the work linked to the Bill involved education as provided for by the Committee for the Education of Poles, a body brought into being on 1 April 1947. The Committee’s principal aim was stressed in its memorandum: ‘To fit them (Poles) for absorption into British schools and British careers whilst still maintaining provision for their natural desire for the maintenance of Polish culture and the knowledge of Polish History and Literature.”  The National Assistance Board was to provide accommodation for Polish refugees in camps, hostels or other establishments. The Board took charge of the Polish Resettlement Camps. Former army and air force camps were utilized as temporary accommodation throughout the country for over 250,000 Polish troops and their families. 

School grounds in Bottisham, classrooms and dormitories.

For many years these camps were seen as remote places packed with Nissen huts or poor quality dwellings occupied by more than one family per hut. They were located in rural areas or outside the cities, heated by slow combustion stoves, but with poor natural ventilation and light. There were severe shortages in many aspects of everyday life in the camps. However, for the first generation of Poles they became a symbol of stability; for the second, much Most camps were eventually closed in the 1950’s and late1960’s. Northwick Park Camp (Gloucestershire) was closed in 1968, though according to local (British) residents the last Polish families only moved out in 1973. Based on interviews with local residents who lived close to the Northwick Park Estates in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Ashby Folville Camp (Leicestershire) was closed in 1958; Babdown (Gloucestershire) in 1959; Daglingworth (Gloucestershire) in 1961; Melton Mowbray (Leicestershire) in 1962; Kelvedon (Essex) in 1959.younger generation, the camps would always remain in their memory as happy places, full of freedom.

A group of camp residents, Nissen huts in the background.

In due course, the Poles emerged as dedicated contributors to the rebuilt British and many other post-war economies. Children of Polish descent, who were born, brought up and educated in the reality of the resettlement camps have engaged in professional careers and made their Polish names visible not only in a rapidly diversifying British society, but in other cultures on different continents in the post war times. The classes of ’46 and ’47 (in particular) demonstrates the successful implementation of the principles adopted by the Committee for the Education of Poles. These children of Polish descent were born, brought up and educated in the reality of the Committee’s camps or hostels. After obtaining a basic education, they engaged in professional careers and made their Polish names recognizable in a rapidly diversifying British society.

A Nissen hut in Northwick Park

Two prominent examples must suffice. Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, a Polish-British physician and immunologist is currently the 345th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Sir Leszek’s parents arrived in the Britain in 1947 and settled in Wales, where he was born and brought up in a small, Polish-speaking community. He was knighted in 2001.  Then there is Waldemar Januszczak, the well-known British art critic and broadcaster. He also was a child of Polish refugees, and tragically lost his father in a train accident when he was one-year old. Today, the Polish minority constitutes one of the largest and the most prosperous ethnic groups in the UK and in America. 

     

Nissen hut today, with added entrance porch. Northwick Park (Gloucestershire)