When SA took in 500 Polish Orphans

In April 1943, a ship carrying 500 Polish orphans landed in South Africa to find a home in Oudtshoorn. Finlay Peake tells the story.

During World War 2, some 1,7 million people were deported from their family homes in Poland to Eastern Siberia, Russia. As a result, many orphaned children needed a new home. In April 1943, after a difficult and long sea voyage, a group of 500 orphans reached the shores of South Africa, where they were warmly welcomed by the local population.

A camp was established for them in Oudtshoorn. There the 500 children — 299 boys and 201 girls — and about 60 caregivers created their “Little Poland”. Many members of the Polish community in South Africa today can trace their roots to this orphanage, and the Catholic Church is playing a key role in keeping the memory of this slice of history alive.

On September 17, 1939, two weeks after the German invasion of Poland, Soviet troops swiftly occupied the eastern half of the country and, after a plebiscite, annexed the area to Ukraine and Belorussia. Beginning in the winter of 1939/40, the Soviet authorities deported over a million Poles, many of them children, to various provinces in the Soviet Union.

In the summer of 1941 the Polish government in exile in London received permission from the Soviet Union, now at war with Germany, to release several hundred thousand former Polish citizens from labour camps, prisons and forcible resettlement. South Africa’s Prime Minister Jan Smuts agreed to transport 500 children to the Union of South Africa.

But then tragedy struck. The ship carrying the children was sunk by a German submarine, killing them all. A second group was sent on the SS Dunera, and landed safely in Port Elizabeth on April 10, 1943, a Saturday.

The children’s home — known in Polish as Dom Polskich Dzieci — was set up in Oudtshoorn for their temporary accommodation, care and education. (It is located on what is now South Africa’s Infantry School army base.) Its first director was a Polish priest, Fr Franciczek Kubienski, who was posted ahead of the arrival of the refugees to prepare the children’s home.

The Polish consul-general, Dr Stanisław Łepkowski, and his wife Zofia did a huge amount of work for the Oudtshoorn children in rebuilding their lives with balance, meaning and fullness. Ouma Smuts, as the prime minister’s wife Issie was popularly known, also took a keen interest in the refugee children, especially in their education and fostering an appreciation of their rich Polish cultural heritage.

Story of  survivor

Stan Niekrasz, one of the surviving children, recalled the experience. He has few memories of the journey to South Africa, “but what stands out in my mind were the burials at sea. The bodies were wrapped in cloth and discharged from a plank into the sea. I recall the sharks below in the water… very frightening for a young boy.”

The camp was well-equipped, he said. “We were looked after very well. We were 24 children in each barrack, and we had warm beds and clothing, food and spiritual guidance from the Fathers — very strict Irish Fathers who knew how to handle the children. It was very difficult for some of us [to acclimatise]. Remember we came from a very cold climate, from -40°C to very hot Oudtshoorn. Some children fainted and others splashed themselves with water to keep cool.”

Niekrasz explained that the children, despite speaking no English at that stage, managed to play with children from the town. The language barrier was overcome with sport, especially football and cricket. The people of Oudtshoorn were very welcoming. “We would walk over a 100-year-old swinging bridge to get from the camp to the town. There we would see the various sights, caves, farms and so on. The people would take us children out, to their homes and show them around the town,” Niekrasz said.

“We used to go to the cinemas to watch a comedy, but couldn’t understand what was being said, which was difficult for us. English was not really taught in the camp. I assume they thought the war would end soon and we would all go back home,” he said, adding that he later learnt English in a Catholic school in Cape Town.

The Catholic faith was alive in the home. “There was a church in the camp. You must remember that religion is a big thing in Poland.”

When the home was closed in 1947, about half of the children remained in South Africa to start new lives. Others were reunited with families in various Polish refugee camps in Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyka, Northern and Southern Rhodesia. A few went back to Poland.

Niekrasz remained in Oudtshoorn for four years before moving to Cape Town to continue his education. “The Catholic schooling in Cape Town was more trade-orientated than academic. Many of the children later started their own businesses in trade or worked in trade-orientated jobs. Few went into the academic field.”

The Polish children and caregivers of Oudtshoorn have left behind various legacies to commemorate their lives in South Africa. A memorial was sadly demolished to make way for a dual carriage road. However, thanks to the Polish Association of Siberian Deportees in South Africa, a new monument was unveiled on the grounds of the local CP Nel Museum in a ceremony on September 22, 2023. The front of the memorial shows figures in relief of five children and two adult caregivers, as well as the Siberian Eagle and the Polish White Eagle. The Polish section of the CP Nel Museum documents various aspects of the home, including photos of the children and related documents.

The crypt beneath the main altar of Oudtshoorn’s Catholic St Saviour’s cathedral holds a copy of the icon of the Black Madonna of Czechostowa in Poland, which was painted in 1993 by the late Stefan Adamski, an alumnus of the Polish home. In 2021, a commemorative stained glass window was unveiled in the chapel.

A book by the late Mgr Jan Jaworski was published in 1993 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Polish refugee children in Oudtshoorn. Currently an illustrated book on the history of Poles in South Africa is in the planning stages, according to Stefan Szewczuk, president of the Polish Association of Siberian Deportees in Africa. “The plan is to have different chapters on various topics related to the history of Poles in South Africa to be written by different authors.”

As recent memorial activities show, even after eight decades, the story of the Polish refugee children is not forgotten.

• With thanks to Stefan Szewczuk for extra information

Published in the January 2024 issue of The Southern Cross magazine