Anniversary for Pahiatua’s children
The arrival in Pahiatua of 733 Polish children in 1944 will be marked with an unveiling ceremony on Friday, 3 November in Main Street at 11.30am.
Former New Zealand Ambassador to Poland Wendy Hinton will be present along with mayor Tracey Collis and a government representative.
On 9 June 1943 the US transport ship Hermitage, carrying a group of 706 Polish refugees from Iran to Mexico, anchored for a short time at Wellington.
The wife of the Polish Consul, Countess Maria Wodzicka, visited them and had the idea of bringing some of the other Polish orphans from Iran to New Zealand. She shared her idea with Prime Minister Peter Fraser’s wife, and the idea become a reality when Mr Fraser and his government offered hospitality to 733 Polish children and 102 staff to accompany them. So the journey from Isfahan to Pahiatua began.
On 1 November 1944, Mr Fraser, the Polish Consul Count Kazimierz Wodzicki and his wife Countess Maria welcomed the children to New Zealand on board the USS General Randall in Wellington.
That same day, the last part of the long journey was completed by two special trains from Wellington to Pahiatua.
The Polish children were farewelled from Wellington Railway Station by hundreds of Wellington school children waving New Zealand and Polish flags. There were also big welcomes at Palmerston North and Pahiatua, and all along the way there were groups of children waving to the arrivals.
In a gesture of further goodwill, some of those children were driven to other railway stations to cheer on the refugees again.
Thirty-three army trucks transported the arrivals from Pahiatua station to the old internment camp whose official name was now the Polish Children’s Camp in Pahiatua. At last they had a new home. The long journey was over.
Women from Pahiatua’s Polish Children’s Hospitality Committee prepared the beds, put flowers on tables and tidied up the camp for their arrival. The camp was administered by the New Zealand army. All army maintenance staff took orders from Camp Commandant Major Foxley. In addition, the Polish administration was headed by the Polish delegate Jan S´ ledzin´ ski and the Polish staff received their orders from him.
All teaching at the camp was in Polish and even some of its street names were in Polish. It was intended that after the war all the children and staff would return to Poland. However, after the Russians had pushed the Germans back across Poland in 1945, the Russians installed a pro-Soviet communist government in Poland and retained, with some adjustments, the territories occupied in 1939.
It was at this stage that the New Zealand Government assured the children and staff that they were welcome to remain in New Zealand.
In early 1945, one of the first groups of girls left the camp to attend New Zealand schools, and at the beginning of the 1946 school year a second group left for Catholic secondary schools or to towns to learn various trades. Towards the end of 1946, the new Russian-installed Warsaw Government sent a special envoy to New Zealand, Mrs Zebrowska, to inspect the living conditions of the Polish children in the camp and New Zealand schools. After inspecting the camp, she returned to Poland completely satisfied.