The arrival of the Windrush in June 1948 at Tilbury symbolises many things about Britain at the end of the War.
- The return of Caribbean ex-servicemen who had contributed to the wartime effort against Hitler and the Nazis.
- The arrival of people from the West Indian colonies wanting to contribute to the re-building of a shattered Britain.
- The irony of having been a ship used to provide Hitler Youth with holidays around the Baltic before the war.
- The fear in some quarters that was generated by what the Daily Graphic called ‘invasion ‘of just under 500 people, representing imperial racist attitudes.
If you saw David Olusoga’s TV programme a few years back on the Government attitude to the Windrush and immigration then you will have been shocked by the long roots of the hostile environment which has been so damaging to members of the Generation. It has been a reminder that far from being welcoming and liberal Britain has been, divided between racists and anti-racists with a large bloc in between of people whose views were and are based on fear, with unscrupulous politicians exploiting the tensions that are created.
So it is important that we continue to research and tell the story of the Black contribution in Britain during October’s Black History Month and on the annual Windrush Day. This includes the fact that Ivor Cummings, the Anglo-African Government welfare officer who met and helped the Windushers had grown up in the Croydon area in the 1920s. It is also important to tell the post Windrush story of anti-racism and for white Britons to reflect on their parallel and inter-connected lives and what the impact of the Windrush Generation has been on their lives.
The Windrush Poles
But hidden from sight until recently have
been the 38 adult women, 26 children and one male Poles who were also on the Windrush having embarked in Mexico
coming to Britain to rejoin their Polish husbands and fathers who have served
with the Allies. Among them was Stefania
Nowak aged 28 and eleven year old 11 year old Janina Folta, with
her mother and sisters going to rejoin her father and brother.
Janina remembered the hacienda that housed the family she had regular
food, warmth, safety and education.
On board the Windrush, Janina and the other children didn’t know how to
use cutlery to eat the food that was provided. The food in Mexico had been
mostly stew and tortillas; in Asia they had eaten whatever scraps they could
find. Janina remembers the crew trying to teach them to hold a knife and fork,
and how this embarrassed the older girls.
They travelled in berths below the waterline, paid for by the British
government. Janina recalls it being musty and dark and they were all seasick.
They were not allowed to roam freely on the boat; they could only go out on
deck in escorted groups and she never saw any of the other passengers.
Journalists
ignored the Poles concentrating on interviewing and reporting the Jamaicans and
Trinidadians.
The arrival
of these 66 Poles was the result of a government-sponsored scheme to gather
Polish nationals scattered across the globe and reunite them with partners and
families in the United Kingdom.
After the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the
invasion of Poland by both parties, Stalin ordered the mass deportation of 1.5m
Poles to Siberian labour camps. In the camps the dead had to be buried twice,
because the ground was too hard in winter so they were preserved in deep snow
until spring. After two years, some of the captives escaped but fewer than 10%
survived the 3,000-mile journey to get out of the Soviet Union and into Iran,
eating dogs and tortoises to survive. Later Stalin agreed that men could leave
and join the exiled Polish Government’s armed forces, but provided no help with
their transportation.
In the
summer of 1943, after Polish, Mexican, British and American negotiations some 1,400
Poles, mostly women and children, were transported to Colonia Santa Rosa, a
refugee village near the city of León, Mexico remaining there until 27 March,
1947.
Britain passed the Polish Resettlement Act to Polish servicemen to stay in Britain, provide assistance to integrate in Britain, enable their dependents in exile throughout the world to join them and initially house them in residential camps such as at Shobdon, Blackshaw in Staffordshire, Lynn Park Camp in Aberdeen and Roughan Camp, near Bury St. Edmunds.
The Windrush
passenger list records them as ‘Alien Passengers’ and the women as household
Domestics.
Poles in Britain Post 1948
Over half of the Windrush Poles put down roots in
the UK and lived out their lives as British citizens. Lucyna Procinska,
for example, made her home in Manchester, twice marrying Englishmen. Her
brother, Mieczysław, went on to marry a resettled Pole and resided in
Northamptonshire. Janina and her family were reunited with her father and
older brother. She remembers it was cold and damp, a contrast to Mexico, and she
hardly knew her father. They had to register as immigrants and report to the
police if they moved house or job or got married.
Nowak with her
husband 35 year-old Andrzej was among at least twenty-seven who moved on to
Canada or the United States. The Nowaks went to Canada in November 1948.
The late 40’s and
early 50s saw thousands of Poles coming
to Britain.
More than 100,000 Polish refugees from Siberia came to the UK after the war on other ships.
A book n the Windrush Poles by Jane Raca will be published
later this year.
My previous discussion on the Windrush during the commemoration in Croydon in 2019 organised by Councillor Patsy Cummings can be seen at:
The Croydon connections with the Windrush can be read about in my
pamphlet Croydon’s Black and Anti-Racism History 1948-1979.
Further Reading
https://culture.pl/en/article/the-windrush-poles-from-deportation-to-new-life
https://www.windrushpoles.co.uk/
https://www.britishfuture.org/windrush-poles/
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