The Early Years

In 1947 Arthur Calwell, the Australian Minister for Immigration, met with officials from the International Refugee Organisation in London. This meeting was to change the composition of Australian society forever. From 1947-54 Australia received 170,000 displaced persons of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds - 60,000 of those were Polish.

The journey for Polish post-World War II migrants was full of trauma, danger, great grief and loss of homeland, family, friends and belongings. The people who arrived here had suffered the consequencesof the mass destruction of their homeland.

Some had survived concentration camps, many were deported to labour camps in Germany and to the Soviet Union to work in harsh and primitive conditions often confronted by hunger, death of loved ones, death of strangers and witnesses to human suffering.

Others came as servicemen, many still in uniformed, who had fought with the allies in various campaigns - Polish airmen who had fought in the Battle of Britain, soldier who found in Tobruk, took part in the Normany landings, the Battle for Monte Cassino and other fields of battle. There were also veterans from the 1939 campaigns - as well as soldiers from the underground Home Army.

Others came as children and adolescents, many of whom had been orphaned during the war. These children found themselves in refugee camps initially in Iran and Palestine, then India and British East Africa. The children were part of a significant group who had been released from detention by Soviet authorities in 1942, and then travelled from Arkhangelsk, Vorkuta, Kazakhstan and Kolyma, in goods trains, sick, hungry, and in rags - to centres where Polish army units were being formed.

The paths to Australia were as diverse as the stories of the people themselves - arriving from Africa, India, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Lebanon, Libia, China. They arrived in Australia with expectations of a new life, hopes for a prosperous future; many wanted to get a far away from death, disillusionment and the destruction they had experienced. This was often mixed with a heavy heart, 'tesknota' for their homeland, family members, their culture, traditions and memories left behind.

For those who had been soldiers and political refugees, the bitterness and the feeling of having been betrayed remained as they saw the dream of a free and independent Poland evaporate with the post-war political manipulations of former allies. Many lived "out of their suitcases" - waiting in hope and anticipation for the new regime to collapse, so that they could return to their homeland - 'ojczyzna'. Many did not live to see the day when forty years later this finally did come to pass.

They arrived to quite primitive conditions, in transit centres such as Bonegilla, Bathurst, Northam, Cunderdin and Greta - where husbands were seperated from wives and children. Men worked on large projects such as the Hydro-Electric Scheme in Tasmania and the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Others worked on building roads, cane cutting in Queensland, or as coalminers, farms hands, fruit pickers and furnace labourers in Victoria. Women worked as domestics and hospital orderlies.

Many found the work hard and felt isolated. Once free of their contractual obligations they built their first home, established life long friendships, celebrated marriages, christenings, founded cultural organisation and religious groupings.

Yet even when settlement was difficult and full of trauma both for the individual and the family, Polish migrants developed organisational structures which maintained the essentials of language, culture and religious traditions. These structures and and activities corresponded to and fulfilled certain needs which were accentuated because of the great distance which separated the people from family and friends.