Poland in Belgium

Photographer Johannes Vande Voorde portrayed the last surviving veterans, listened to their gripping stories and travelled after them, armed with his camera, in search of traces of their liberation journey.

Dirk Verbeke, who has been interested in the Polish liberators for many years and knew many of them personally, provides historical photographs and context.

The book is a tribute to forgotten heroes and an impressive route, from the coasts of Arromanches, via Tielt, Sint-Niklaas, Antwerp, Hulst and Breda, among others, to the former naval base of Wilhelmshaven.

Many of these men have kept their fate to themselves for decades. But as the old men felt the end of their lives approaching, the past came back to them, and unprocessed emotions were on their lips.

Now that the last Polish veterans are in their nineties and their stories are definitively referred to the history books, it is all the more important that we remember them.

This book recalls those who fought so far from home for “the freedom of others and died for Poland”.