The heroic Poles (1)

 

In the moment

 

David Harvie

Catherine Czerkawska brought me up with a start in ‘Rewriting History’(SR, 18 January) by her support for the petition by the Polish Kosciuszko Foundation in the US to a variety of news and media organisations to cease the offensive use of the phrase 'Polish death camps' by journalists.
     I had been aware of the issue (but not of the petition), so although her article did not surprise me in one sense, in quite another it came to me as one of those startling 'in the moment' events.
     The previous day, I had watched Andrzej Wajda's brilliant and harrowing film 'Katyn' – the DVD lent to me by Polish friends. I had been delaying watching the film, for the usual, intellectually lazy reason of 'not being in the right mood' for what could certainly never be an easy subject. Well, of course, the film was a masterpiece by a director who made his first masterpiece many decades ago.
     So, when SR arrived in my inbox, I was definitely, hair-raisingly, 'in the mood'. I read Catherine's article and, like her, thought 'About time too!'. I immediately went to the petition website and added my signature. As I suppose we all do, I waited a few minutes and checked that my signature had indeed been added.      
     What a frisson was delivered when I saw it comfortably nestling among others posted from Scotland – probably all added in the same half-hour since Catherine's article had arrived. Oh, and Andrzej Wajda's was there too, as one of the initial signatories.
     Over 20 years ago I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was an extremely unsettling experience; I felt nervous about going, and uncharacteristically fretted about what to wear. I don't mean dressing in black or anything like that; I think I wanted to appear as anonymous as possible, almost as if I wasn't there.
     The site was busy, with tour coaches and large parties of visitors of various nationalities – the entire site is now a state museum and memorial. I had really wanted to be there entirely on my own, but that was not to be, and things got worse. It was clear to me that some of the visitors, including adults, had little understanding of what I had felt was appropriate behaviour.
     In one of the museum buildings, two groups of what I can only describe as 'holidaymakers' (yes, they were Americans) unbelievably dressed in Bermuda shorts and shirts and wearing 'shades', posed for photographs in front of the huge, glass walls behind which were piled the spectacles and suitcases of the massacred.
     The practical bit of my brain raged at the stupidity of their expectations from pointing flashguns at sheets of glass, while my intellect and emotions were sickened – for that moment - by the loud, ignorant insensitivity of their very existence.
     As Catherine urged, sign the petition and help correct history.

www.thekf.org

 

I am driven to try to send a word of heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Catherine Czerkawska for her superb, timely piece on 'Rewriting history' and giving readers the opportunity to sign the Kosciuszko Foundation's petition.

Marshall Walker
(New Zealand)

 

The heroic Poles (2)

 

A treasured book

 

Judith Jafaar

As a fairly recent subsciber to Scottish Review, I have been hesitant in responding to any of your postings, especially as I am an expatriate Scot, now in London, but previously in West Africa, thus not fully conversant with what's going on back home.
     But I feel compelled to comment on Catherine Czerkawska's article about the 'Polish death camps'. I am affronted and my father (1910-1987) would be incensed, not just at the idea that somehow the Poles were complicit in any Nazi death camps, but at the disdain in which many English people hold these 'Eastern Europeans' (they're non-discriminate – all eastern Europeans are Poles) who are coming here and stealing their jobs and livelihoods. This ludicrous notion is, of course, fomented by the right-wing English tabloid press, at every opportunity.
     I happen to live in Ealing, which I believe has the largest Polish population in the world outside Poland (excepting, perhaps, some cities in America), and am happy to count several Poles as my friends. Their tales of life and death under the Nazi/Soviet regimes are hair-raising – something we Brits mercifully escaped. But that's another story...
     My story is my father's story, and one he often told to his five children.
     My father (and mother) was an MA graduate in English from Glasgow University. He did his teacher training after that, as did my mother, and when war broke out in 1939 he was in a reserved occupation, teaching in the Gorbals, for a while. Then he was called up, firstly to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (invalided out for appendicitis and peritonitis), and then to the King's Own Scottish Borderers. He refused to accept this posting to the 'Kosbies', as they were the ones, along with the Black and Tans, who had murdered several members of his Irish family. He was quite prepared to to go to court martial and the glasshouse on this one, but the powers-that-be decided that it would be a waste of resources to prosecute any further, so posted him to the Army Educational Corps. That's when he met the Poles.
     He was posted to Irvine, Ayrshire, to teach English to the Polish Free Army, mostly officers. They, along with other foreign nationals, were crucial to the British war effort, something we seem to have forgotten. He enjoyed his time with the Poles and till the day he died would occasionally greet us with Polish affirmations. My father was a rather taciturn man, not given to emotional outpourings of any kind, but did tell us, on many occasions, how much he admired these Poles whom he had met and taught, how they wore corsets under their uniforms and hairnets at night, and how brave they were. He just loved these guys.
     I am now, after my parents' death, the proud owner of a magnificent 'coffee table' book given to my father in 1945 by the Polish officers whom he taught.
     It says, in the acknowledgement:
     'To Mr G Hill, for the arduous work you undertook so cheerfully for us in teaching us English, please find in this book an expression of our graditude and best wishes, Irvine 1 December 1945. Members of the English Courses at the Polish Army Engineers Training Course.'
     The book itself is an illustrated history of the Polish armed forces over the last 1,000 years, 'Polskie Sily Zbrojne W Ciagu Wiekow', and is signed by 16 officers. I will treasure it till the day I die, and it will be passed on to my children.