The General Langfitt Story
Chapter 5 - Dispersal (continued)
Others were not so lucky. Kazimierz Sosnowski, who had seen his mother briefly in Pahlavi, arrived in Tehràn with a group of twenty children but they found there was no-one there to supervise or care for them:
Somehow we kept together while we were shifted from one camp to another. I was sick all the time with a form of scabies. The doctors had little to work with but they did whatever they could. We had communal baths, boys and girls together, with special soap to stop the itching. After that I was on the road to recovery and I put my name on a searcher's list to find my mother. From Tehràn I travelled to Ahvàz where I stayed only a week. I was on the first ship which went directly from Abàdàn to Tanga, a port in Tanganyika, where we arrived on the 14th of November 1942. Still, I could not find my mother.
Visiting Polish graves in Tehràn, 1942
(Courtesy of Stanislawa Jutrzenka-Trzebiatowska)
There were three major camps in Tehràn, all extremely primitive, especially at the start, when epidemics of typhus and typhoid fever broke out once again. Irena Makowiecka considered that she and her mother were 'very lucky':
We lived in Camp Number Three which was in a garden of the Shah. There were trees and bushes and a stream with little waterfalls whispering over the pebbles. It was a lovely place situated in the middle of the desert, created purely for the delectation of the Shah. For us, water had a healing effect and I think about this place with pleasure. In fact, I have a little waterfall in my garden now, built in memory of our time there. We didn't stay in Tehràn very long. After about six weeks we went to Ahvàz for a few days and then we went to East Africa, travelling in a convoy through the Persian Gulf. It was still war time and we were in dangerous waters.
People who stayed longer in Tehràn found that, gradually, the relief effort was stepped up. 'Mattresses, lamps, and other essentials, as well as toys and candies for the children were brought in by Jews, Persians, British, and Americans' who were concerned about the plight of the Polish refugees (Królikowski, 1983, p. 70). Particular effort focused upon providing facilities for the growing numbers of orphans and children separated from one or both parents. Each of the three camps in Tehràn had an orphanage and many children resumed their schooling, initially squatting in the dust and using the ground as a writing tablet. When things became better organised the trestle tables used at meal times were converted into school benches.
In Isphahan, once the capital city of the Shahs, a 'magnificent centre was created for school children, its six schools and boarding houses loaned by European and American nuns. The Shah himself made available a large swimming pool.' (Królikowski, 1983, p. 71). Janina Pienkos was sent to the orphanage in Isphahan when she was 10 years old because her mother became too sick to cope. She remembers 'how beautiful it was. I can still smell it. I remember the sunsets and that the shops were full of people making silver jewellery. We went to some kind of a dinner for all the orphans in the Shah's palace'. Such unaccustomed treats left a strong impression on many children's minds. Halina Juszczyk talked of a similar visit with joy:
One of our teachers told us one morning that 200 children were to be the guests of the Shah of Persia. Lorries took us to his palace. We were so happy. We walked in pairs through the beautiful gardens and then into the palace's rooms. We thought we were in paradise and then they took us to the Hall of Mirrors. There were 366 mirrors in a round room and I remember seeing myself in aIl these mirrors and thinking, 'Gosh there are so many of me!' There were little tables in the middle and the waiters standing around. We had ice-cream with fruit. You can't imagine the taste of it! It was so beautiful. After about fifteen minutes the Shah and his wife came in and said something in their language which was translated to us. He said he knew what we went through in Russia and he welcomed us in his palace. I remember his face like today. This visit to the Shah's palace was something to remember.
Many people recalled their time in Tehràn with a pleasure born from a sense of freedom and their first taste of 'normality', although for some the close proximity of the Soviet army made them uneasy and keen to leave as soon as transports to the British colonies in Africa and India could be arranged. Some people had to wait several months in Ahvàz, 'one of the hottest places on earth' according to Urszula Paszkowska, and then several days lolling in the Persian Gulf waiting for their transport ships, before finally leaving Iran. Such experiences took their toll on the elderly and weak. Others spent much longer in Tehràn, especially if they could find work, or had continuing bouts of sickness. Maria Szuster-Nowak recalled:
While we were in a transit camp in Tehràn I went to somebody to ask for a job. I got one in the sewing factory. At first I was just finishing off garments and then I was put on the sewing machine making clothes. Grandma was there so she looked after my daughter Mietka while I was at work. She was too young to go to school.
Mietka Gruszka (nèe Nowak) was only 6 at the time and so didn't have 'too many memories of Iran'. She did remember being 'bored and lonely' staying all day in barracks:
with long platforms where people slept next to one another. We were only divided from the next family by a thin partition or a blanket which we had to find for ourselves. When my mother wasn't working she was very sick with brucellosis and had to go to hospital. My older cousins, whom we met up with in Tehràn, used to come home from school and teach me to read and write just to get me out of their hair. I wanted to go to school very much and when the headmaster of the school was convinced that I could read a few letters and write a few numbers, he let me start. The next year they put me up into grade two and I did six months of grade two in Tehràn before we went to Africa.
Zdzislawa Wasylkowska (nèe Rewaj) spent two years in Tehràn after being reunited with her mother and sister.
Mother got work doing the accounting for a sewing room run by the Red Cross where they made alterations to some of the clothes donated by the Polish community in America. I went back to school where we had professional teachers. There were no books but we were taught and we wanted to learn.
Then we had to move camp because they liquidated ours after sending a lot of people to Africa. My mother did not want to go to Africa. She had quite good connections and she didn't need to go. It was my sister and I who wanted to be with our friends. We left in 1944 on the very last transport from Tehràn to Africa.
The Polish government in exile established a remarkable welfare organisation for Polish war refugees, giving highest priority to the welfare and education of Polish children. This was achieved with the assistance of the International Red Cross and the British authorities who, until the Yalta Conference in February 1945, recognised and worked closely with them. This impressive effort was in part funded by the gold which the Polish government in exile had smuggled out of Poland in 1939. As this source of funding dried up, the fate of the Polish refugees lay increasingly in the hands of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and then the International Refugee Organisation (IRO), one of the agencies which took up the work of UNRRA when it was disbanded in September 1948 (Thomson, 1962, p. 773-4).
Transports out of Iran, to destinations as different as Mexico, India and the British colonies in East and South Africa, began within weeks of the first Polish refugees' arrival there. The journeys by ship, all in convoy because of the treacherous war-time shipping conditions, proved to be memorable for many people, not only because of sea sickness. There are numerous recollections of the kindness shown by some sailors to the children, especially to those who were fortunate enough to be aboard a Polish vessel. Many of the refugees passed through Karachi, although there were a few transports which went directly to Africa.
While all members of the 'General Langfitt Group' eventually ended up in one of two settlements, Koja in Uganda or Tengeru in Tanganyika, many people spent between three and seven years in other African camps or in Valivade Camp in India before being transferred to Uganda or Tanganyika. After the disruptions of the previous few years, these camps provided a period of relative stability, although uncertainty about the future increased after the war ended and it became clear that, for many Poles, there was no going back to their beloved homeland.
Although there were similarities in the way each of the Polish refugee settlements were organised, there were also notable differences. A brief overview of people's experiences of Valivade, Koja and Tengeru is important because it highlights the spirit of survival and enterprise which ultimately made these Polish women and children such attractive prospects for the Australian Immigration Commission in November 1949.