Poland in New Zealand

In the year of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Polish Embassy together with the National Library of New Zealand invite you to a special public lecture on the Second World War by Mr Karol Nawrocki, PhD, Director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, Poland "The Beginning of Evil. Fighting and Suffering".

Polish Ambassador Zbigniew Gniatkowski participated in the official commemorations of Waitangi Day. This year marks the 180th anniversary of the signing of Waitangi Treaty by the British Crown and Maori tribe, which is seen as the founding document of New Zealand.

The main observations of the 75th liberation anniversary of the World War Two Nazi-German death camp Auschwitz were held on January 27th on the camp's memorial site in southern Poland.

Read the Polish President Andrzej Duda's message on the 75th Anniversary of Liberation of the Nazi German Death Camp KL Auschwitz.

The 20th century brought the world inconceivable suffering and the deaths of hundreds of millions in the name of twisted, totalitarian ideologies. The death toll of Nazism, fascism and communism is obvious for people of our generation. It is also obvious who is responsible for those crimes and whose pact started World War II - the most murderous conflict in the history of humankind.

On Friday, 6 December a special multi-lingual publication was launched with the excerpts from the book “A World Apart: The journal of a Gulag Survivor” by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. The publication in Polish, English, Italian, Hebrew and Te Reo Māori was prepared in collaboration with the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation, Victoria University of Wellington.

On Friday, 6 December, the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel will pay a historic visit to the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. It will be Angela Merkel’s first visit to the Memorial Site after her 14 years in office and the third visit of an incumbent head of government. German chancellor will be accompanied by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Two concerts “New World, New beginnings”, on 15 and 17 November 2019 at the iconic St Andrew’s on the Terrace church in Wellington, were performed by SMP Ensemble, founded by Andrzej Nowicki. The ensemble is associated with the Victoria University of Wellington. The project was supported by the Polish Embassy in Wellington.

Please take a look at the latest Polish Embassy's presentation highlighting personal stories and profiles of several members of the Polish Children of Pahiatua - a group of 733 Polish children, mostly orphans and half-orphans, who arrived in Wellington on 1 November 1944 upon the invitation by the New Zealand Government. On the 75th anniversary of their arrival, we present some of their contributions to their new homeland.

Polish Ambassador Zbigniew Gniatkowski provides a Polish perspective on the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War in the latest issue of New Zealand International Review.