Poland in South Africa

The screening will be organized by the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre in cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Pretoria, the Polish Siberian Association in Africa and the Sol Plaatje University as part of the Poland-South Africa historical project. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with Sławomir Grunberg, Stefan Szewczuk and Cobus Rademeyer.

The documentary directed by Sławomir Grünberg relates a story of over 1400 Polish refugees freed from the WWII Soviet camps, including hundreds of orphans, who found a friendly home in Santa Rosa, Mexico from 1943 to 1946. Mr. Grünberg is a Polish-born American documentary film maker.

As a result of the evacuation of General Anders' army from the USSR in 1942, several dozen thousand civilians, including several thousand of the children ended up in Iran. But for many it was just a stopover on the way between the continents - to South America, Africa and even Australia. Only a few returned to Poland after the war. In 1942, camps for Polish civilian refugees in Iran were organized in Tehran, Ahwad and Isfahan.

Persia was not the only country in which centres for Polish children were established. The Polish Government-in-Exile appealed to the League of Nations to help the evacuated children. India, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa (now the Republic of South Africa) responded to the appeal.

In 1943, two transports (1,500 refugees, including a large group of children) ended up in Santa Rosa in Mexico. Polish nuns, Felician Sisters from Chicago, helped to look after the children. After the end of the war, the pupils of Santa Rosa went to the USA, Canada and other countries of the world.

In April 1943, at the invitation of the Prime Minister of the South African Union (now South Africa), Field Marshal Jan Smuts, a group of 500 Polish children reached Oudtshoorn. They were accommodated in barracks on the territory of the military camp. A Polish school was established there.

We cordially invite you to the screening of this moving film and to the discussion, during which the story of the children who found shelter in Oudtshoorn will be addressed and their stories compared to those from Santa Rosa.

The number of places is limited,  registration is essential: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0odO-rrTMrHdRlZmEBrkXFUKdemOzKV78t