Poland WW2

August 24, 2024
Why young people fought in the Warsaw Uprising

To truly understand why the people of Warsaw were prepared to risk their lives in the Uprising against German occupation in August 1944, it's worth looking at the youth. Young...

Continue Reading
May 17, 2024
The birth of ‘Czerwone Maki’, the ‘Red Poppies of Monte Cassino’ song

Czerwone Maki (Red Poppies) was written in the night of 17 - 18 May 1944, whilst the author watched the artillery fire on Monte Cassino. It was inspired by being...

Continue Reading
April 30, 2024
From the Katyń massacre to Monte Cassino – one boy’s tragic loss

Whilst the massacre of 22,000 Polish officers in 1940 at Katyń is commemorated every year in April, it was just the beginning of further horror - deportation and exile for...

Continue Reading
July 4, 2023
General Sikorski : one soldier remembers

“The tragic death of General Sikorski enveloped the entire country and the Polish nation in mourning. To all the other losses was added the greatest and the most painful of...

Continue Reading
June 28, 2023
Empire Windrush: just another journey for Polish refugees

On the 75th anniversary of Empire Windrush, author Jane Raca has kindly agreed to write this piece: On 22 June 1948 the Empire Windrush, a ship that has become famous...

Continue Reading
February 10, 2023
Objects tell the truth of deportations of Poles to Russia

10 February - Hundreds of thousands, possibly up to 1.6 million people interrogated, detained and forcibly deported to isolated regions of the far east of Russia. This would have been the...

Continue Reading
August 31, 2022
Polish Resettlement Camps on British soil link us all

In our search to find out our Polish families' lives both in Poland and in exile, one key element for the Polish soldiers, for their families and also displaced people...

Continue Reading
February 10, 2022
How did Poles deported to Russia in World War 2 escape, to fight on?

The deportation of Poles by the Russians to slave labour camps in the Soviet Union during WWII, is well documented if not widely known. You can read the testimonies here....

Continue Reading
September 17, 2021
Finally a museum about our Polish families in Soviet captivity

On 17 September 2021, to commemorate the day in 1939 when the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, a Museum has opened telling the history of Poles deported to...

Continue Reading
July 31, 2021
Warsaw Uprising: Why I stand to attention at 17.00 on 1 August

"Stańcie do Apelu” - "stand for the roll call" always sends a shiver through my spine. The silence just before a soldier or scout reads this at 17.00 on the...

Continue Reading