Poland in South Africa

The topic of the conference was the work of Dr. Jochen Lingelbach "On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa during and after the Second World War". Based on extensive archival research and oral history, Dr. Lingelbach asked the question where Polish war refugees,  mainly uneducated, from poor, peasant backgrounds, women and children belonged in the hierarchy of the British colonial community, defined by the "politics of difference". It becomes clear that their positionality was not clear-cut, but relationally depending on the perspectives of those involved. While they were privileged by their whiteness, they were nevertheless marginalized as refugees, women, Eastern Europeans and peasants. Consequently, they found themselves on the edges of colonial whiteness. The British colonial administration was eager to get rid of this problematic group and by 1950 most of the Polish refugees from the camps in the British colonies in Tanganyika, Uganda, Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Kenya had been displaced elsewhere. The exception was the Union of South Africa (now South Africa), which hosted a group of 500 Polish refugees (mainly children) and allowed all interested parties to settle in this country after the war.

The second speaker who attended the conference was dr. Andrew Macdonald, Lecturer at Wits University in Johannesburg. He gave a presentation entitled "Transoceanic Migration to Southern Africa in the Age of Empires". Drawing off unpublished port, shipping and immigration records,  dr. Macdonald explores the streams, patterns and place the “Polish” (or more generally eastern European) experience within the wider themes. During the partitions, migrants bearing Polish surnames were classified as Germans or Russians.

At the end of the event, the speakers answered participants' questions.