Passage to India

On 1 September 1939, Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany. The Second World War began. Sixteen days later, in accordance with a secret protocol to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact signed on 23 August, Poland was also attacked by the Soviet Union. Having divided the Polish lands between themselves, the two states sought to not only seize the country’s territory and resources but also to enslave its people, wipe out its elites and subordinate it to their totalitarian regimes.

In December 1939, the Soviet government took the definitive decision to remove “politically unreliable elements” from occupied territories: representatives of the professional classes and of social groups considered hostile to the process of sovietization. As a result, large-scale deportations of Polish people deep into the USSR took place between February 1940 and June 1941. As a rule, entire families were deported, including children and the elderly.

The largest deportation centers were in the Krasnoyarsk Krai [federal district] and Kazakhstan, as well as in the districts of Archangelsk, Sverdlovsk, Irkutsk and Molotov.

Aid was provided to the masses of civilians who reached the army and sites where legations of the Polish Embassy were operating. Aid consisted mostly of providing food and medication supplied by the governments of the Republic of Poland, Great Britain and the US, as well as by the Polish, British and American Red Crosses. Thousands of children were among those in need. Hospitals, orphanages, community centers and army-run schools for members of boys' and girls' youth organizations were established. By late 1942, the Polish Embassy evacuated from Moscow to Kuybyshev had set up 807 care institutions.

By late September 1941, all sites for troop formation were already filled beyond capacity. From April 1942, Polish-Soviet relations were becoming more and more tense. Soviet authorities had begun to hinder the formation of Polish military units and the delivery of food supplies to the troops. General Anders set about evacuating his army from the USSR to the Middle East. This solution had an additional advantage to the British, in that it enabled an increase in the number of troops in oil-rich areas (which were under threat of a German offensive). In 1942 (in late March and early April, then from August to early September), two large-scale evacuation operations were successfully completed. The evacuees were members of the armed forces and civilians (mostly military families).

The largest transports of Polish people from Iran to Africa were taking place at a time when the Allies’ war situation was at its most difficult.

“In summer 1943, we were transferred by train from Ahvaz to the port of Khorramshahr on the Shatt al-Arab (a combination of the Tigris and the Euphrates), and from there by ship to Karachi. Given that Japanese submarines were prowling the Indian Ocean, one was not allowed to smoke a cigarette or have any sort of light on board: even the flicker of a match could be seen from 20–30 kilometers. Nor were we allowed to throw leftovers overboard, as they would alert the Japanese. Our ship was part of a bigger convoy: 6 to 10 ships overseen by corvettes armed with depth charges.”

Account of Albin Tybulewicz, in: "Polskie dzieci na tułaczych szlakach 1939-1950."

Transit camps were established in Bandra (near Mumbai), Quetta, Country Club (near Karachi) and Malir (the last three within Pakistan today); and permanent settlements were set up in Balachadi and Valivade. Compared to the USSR, transit camps at last provided opportunities of efficient medical treatment, of restoring children’s emotional equilibrium and providing them with a semblance of a normal childhood.

The location of the settlement in Valivade near Kolhapur was specially selected due to its climate, particularly favorable to Europeans, and access to potable water. The settlement was founded a year after Balachadi and was one of the largest permanent settlements for Polish refugees (around 5,000 people had passed through it by 1948). Rather than barracks, the settlement was planned as a system of light buildings with interiors divided into individual quarters (or rooms for single people), each with the basic equipment of bed, table, chair, dressing table, cooking stove (Valivade was a self-catering location, with families receiving catering benefits), so that the refugees would have at least a substitute for home. The first group of Poles arrived in Valivade on 11 June 1943.

Wherever Polish settlements were being established, even only transit facilities, schooling began immediately despite initial shortages of staff, schoolbooks and school equipment. With time, the educational systems at Balachadi and Valivade became extremely well organized, with about a dozen institutions in operation: preschools and elementary schools, middle and high schools, as well as vocational schools and courses offering high teaching standards. The curricula, annual reports and grading systems were modeled on the school structure of prewar Poland. This would not have been possible were it not for the tremendous work and personal commitment of everyone involved: teachers and tutors, as well as representatives of the Polish authorities who supervised the camps.

Cultural education was also provided: libraries and community centers were in operation. In the community centers, themed talks were held and books from the curriculum were read aloud. There were also other activities, which enabled residents to develop their various skills and talents and, most important, to get to know and to remain close to Polish culture. Theater and dance groups and musical ensembles were performing for British as well as Indian audiences from outside the settlement. They also gave frequent guest performances at maharajas’ palaces, as well as in Kolhapur and Mumbai (for instance, school students from Valivade presented Polish dances in Mumbai on several occasions – mazurkas, cracoviennes and highlanders’ dances).

Most reminiscences from India highlight the pivotal role of scouting. Scouts’ meetings, bonfires, soireés, treks, social and cultural activities, even the publication of their own little magazines and books (in the Indian Scouting Pocket Library at Valivade), shaped attitudes of members of the scouting movement, influencing them for the rest of their lives.

Alongside schooling and scouting, sport was another crucial element of education. Not only did it provide an extremely useful way to improve children’s physical stamina, it was also an excellent way for them to occupy their free time. Numerous sports teams and sections were established in volleyball, basketball and football; there was also training in athletics, tennis and table tennis, shooting, swimming, canoeing and others. Various competitions, races and prize competitions were held in the settlements. Those in Balachadi and Valivade had their own football squads, competing against much more experienced British and Indian teams.

Crucially, though schooling was compulsory while scouting, sports and other extracurricular activities were voluntary, residents took part in the latter on a mass scale.

Great significance was attached to patriotic and religious instruction, programmatically provided by school, and to scouting as well as sports and other extracurricular activities.

“Remember that, abroad, each Polish refugee is an ambassador of the Most Serene Republic.”

Quoted from a speech by Gen. Władysław Sikorski, included in The Refugee Book.

During the six years they spent in India, Polish refugees had varied opportunities to come into contact with the Indian community. After an initial period of mutual mistrust, good and even friendly relations were being established. Several Polish-Indian marriages came about. Indians usually worked as English teachers; local people employed in the settlements or working as tradesmen formed another large group: a big bazaar with Indian stalls was established on the outskirts of Valivade. Opportunities for coming into closer contact were greater at Balachadi, where Indians posted by the maharaja worked as teachers and tradesmen, and as doctors, music teachers and cooks (about 50 percent of settlement service was provided by locals).

For refugees in India, Africa, Iran, Mexico and New Zealand, the end of the war did not mean a safe return to Poland. As a result of arrangements made after the war and the so-called Yalta order, those who had roots in the eastern borderlands were no longer able to return home. Furthermore, Poland, within its new borders, was included in the Soviet sphere of influence, with the communist government oppressing many of those who returned. After experiences of Soviet occupation and forced-labor camps, the refugees were under no illusion as to what life would be like in communist Poland, governed at Stalin’s bidding.

Friendships and other bonds, often as strong as family ties, that were formed during period in India are cultivated to this day. The “Polish Indians” have organized trips to India; in particular, great care was taken to restore Polish graves that remain there. Contact with the Indian community was renewed; places of Polish settlements were commemorated.