The Exile Mission. Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

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СКАЧАТЬ Rada’s 1942 national convention, Świetlik reviewed Rada’s accomplishments in publicity for the Polish cause. “We do not use this word,” he said, “and do not talk much about propaganda, but the fact is that . . . we have done a lot to aid propaganda on behalf of Poland.”⁹³ Dissemination of information on the Polish population outside of Poland remained a large part of that publicity campaign.⁹⁴ In the brochure The Facts about the Polish War Relief, published in English early in 1945, Rada presented its aims and program for the future and summarized its wartime activities and achievements. The brochure recapped the story of Polish refugees in different parts of the world as well as that of prisoners in German POW and concentration camps. Graphic pictures illustrated the suffering, death, hunger, and terrible living conditions. Some photographs showed temporary communities built by the exiles: a church erected by them in Valivade, India; a women’s workshop in an African camp; and Polish medical students working at the Paderewski Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland.⁹⁵ Another publication, entitled Poland’s Children, focused on the fate of the “war’s little victims” both in Poland and in exile; according to the brochure’s authors, “the children—the most helpless victims of the war— have always been the object of [the Polish War Relief’s] special attention.”⁹⁶ Expressive drawings depicting the suffering of Poles by the recognized Polish artist W. T. Benda decorated the covers of both brochures. Their postersize enlargements hung on the walls of Rada’s offices and its New York warehouse, reminders of the war’s victims.⁹⁷

      One of the most successful actions carried out by Rada in cooperation with the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) involved the establishment, maintenance, and eventual dissolution of the Santa Rosa settlement in Mexico. The Santa Rosa Polish refugee camp had its origins in negotiations among the American, Polish, and Mexican governments in 1942 and 1943. As a result of an agreement between the Polish government in exile and Mexico, nearly fifteen hundred Polish civilian refugees from India (mostly women and children) found a new home in the camp near León, Mexico. The U.S. Navy offered to transport the refugees free of charge. The American ambassador to Mexico was assigned as an advisor to the Polish camp and the U.S. government demonstrated a vivid interest in the fate of these Poles who had survived the hell of Soviet deportations to Siberia. Rada became involved immediately, appropriating funds for the purchase of food and goods for the refugees who passed through American territory on their way to Mexico. Although the maintenance and administration of the camp were the responsibility of the Polish government, several American humanitarian organizations offered their financial and administrative support. Rada took upon itself the funding of education and health care programs within the camp, the State Department’s Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations covered the administrative costs, and the NCWC pledged financial support for the cultural, recreational, and rehabilitation activities of the camp. Rada appointed a permanent delegate to the camp to monitor and report on the needs of the refugee population. Rada’s special commissions visited the camp, and substantial donations in money and in kind followed.⁹⁸

      The old, run-down hacienda in Santa Rosa soon was transformed into a flourishing and lively Polish colony.⁹⁹ In the summer of 1945, however, the Polish government in exile lost its recognition in Western countries, and the refugees turned their eyes toward the United States as a possible place of immigration. Negotiations on the camp’s dissolution involved the American government and dragged on for many months filled with uneasiness and frustration.¹⁰⁰ PNA/PAC president Charles Rozmarek succeeded in obtaining the American government’s permission to bring twenty-five orphaned boys to the United States. They arrived in the spring of 1946 and were placed in the facilities of the PNA college in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. Due to the efforts of Rada and Świetlik, Roman Catholic orphanages supported by Polonia in Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Buffalo accepted a group of 231 orphaned children. The NCWC also aided in that effort.¹⁰¹

      The resettlement of Polish refugee children, sponsored by Polonia and led by Rada, also included thirty-one boys from Polish refugee settlements in India who entered the Polish Seminary in Orchard Lake in 1945. Two years later another group of eighteen candidates for the priesthood arrived at St. Francis College in Cedar Lake, Indiana. Another group of fifty Polish orphans came from India to America in early 1947, as a result of the efforts of the special committee to aid Polish orphans organized in Chicago.¹⁰²

      Many wartime refugees had a chance personally to experience the generosity of American Polonia, especially during the initial phase of their sojourn. The refugee wave consisted not only of intellectuals and artists; other exiles left Poland abruptly, were caught by the outbreak of the war in foreign countries without many resources at their disposal, or managed to immigrate to the United States after experiencing deportations or incarceration. Numerous professionals faced limited employment opportunities, even if they could find any legal or illegal work. There was, for example, a large group of professional women unable to support themselves in exile. Some of them were elderly women or widows; some were women with sick children or dependent elderly parents; others were the wives or mothers of Polish soldiers and officers serving in the armed forces in the West, imprisoned in POW camps in Germany, or murdered in Katyń. For them, war meant not only loss of or separation from family members, but also disabilities, illnesses, and exhaustion resulting from their experiences in the Soviet labor camps or in Germany.¹⁰³

      The refugees established the Polish War Refugee Association in the United States (Zrzeszenie Uchodźców Wojennych z Polski w Stanach Zjednoczonych), based in New York, and the Circle of Polish Refugees in the Chicago area. The association, headed initially by Stefan Zagórski, and then by Władysław Korczak, turned to Rada for help. Rada allocated some financial resources for the refugees, and in March 1941 it formed a special Executive Committee for Aid to War Refugees from Poland in the United States, headed by Walter Bayer, to coordinate the aid distribution. At the end of August 1940, the lists prepared by the association in cooperation with the Polish consulate general in Chicago included about 250 persons living in the New York and Chicago areas.¹⁰⁴ A year later, a similar roster for New York contained names of 577 Polish Christian refugees. The Polish War Refugee Association’s lists of persons receiving financial aid for 1944 through 1946, however, included both Polish and Jewish names, for example, Lazar Markeles, an unemployed rabbi, and Chil Trunk, a Jewish writer.¹⁰⁵

      The Polish government was concerned about the care of the refugees. Both Consul General Karol Ripa and Ambassador Jan Ciechanowski negotiated with Rada on behalf of the exiles. In the summer of 1941 Ciechanowski himself turned to Censor Świetlik, asking him to support an increase in aid to the refugees in New York. Responding to this request, Świetlik quoted the opinion of the Executive Committee for Aid, declaring that a thousand dollars a month was a sufficient sum for the time being. Świetlik reminded him that the type of support the refugees could expect in the United States would differ from what they might have gotten used to at other stages of their journey, when they were able to lean on the Polish government. “In the United States the refugees will have to depend on their own resourcefulness to a larger extent,” he cautioned. “All refugees in Chicago, with the exception of a few individuals really unable to work, found themselves jobs and settled down nicely. . . . We are under the impression that the refugees from the New York area are showing less willingness to rely on themselves,” he added.¹⁰⁶

      Beginning in September 1940, Rada allocated $150 per month for Chicago-area refugees, and $500 for those in New York.¹⁰⁷ Between the beginning of 1941 and the end of 1945, Rada subsidized the Polish War Refugee Association in New York with roughly a thousand dollars a month and covered some additional outstanding sums for medical emergencies and treatment. Rada’s report for its second national convention in 1942 indicated that more than $21,000 were spent from the organization’s funds to aid Polish refugees in America. Rada’s report of 1948 showed that the help provided by the Committee for Refugees in New York exceeded $68,000.¹⁰⁸ In the years 1942 through 1945, the refugees could also count on some financial support from the Ministry of Welfare of the Polish government in exile. In July 1945, when the United States and other Western countries withdrew their recognition of the London government, the subsidies stopped. In December of СКАЧАТЬ