Providence Watching
Journeys from Wartorn Poland to the Canadian Prairies
- 459 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Providence Watching
Journeys from Wartorn Poland to the Canadian Prairies
About this book
At the start of the Second World War, Poland was invaded by both the German and the Soviet armies. The country was unable to withstand the assaults and thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians were shipped to labour camps and prisons, where starvation, disease, and mistreatment were their daily expectations. With the signing of an amnesty between the Polish and Soviet governments in 1942, many of these soldiers were engaged in rebuilding the Polish army, and travelled through the Mideast to fight in the Italian campaign.After the war, Canada accepted over 4000 Polish immigrant soldiers and their families who did not want to return to a communist regime in their country. This book is a moving oral history of the experiences of forty-five individuals during that transition period between the outbreak of war and their eventual relocation in Canada. Their memories of those times remain clear, not so remarkably perhaps, as they recount how they struggled in labour and prison camps, refugee camps, and exile in freezing northern climates, often arriving with the clothes they wore and nothing else. There are stories here of families torn apart and reunited, courageous escapes, underground resistance, friendship and emnity, and above all of survival. To read these memoirs is to understand how the inhumanity of war is confronted and defied by the indomitable human spirit.
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Information
INDEX OF PLACE NAMES
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Preface
- Translator’s Note
- Introduction
- Alojzy Bach
- Helena Bator
- Feliks Biłos
- Kazimierz Chmielowicz
- Bolesław Czubak
- Irena Ehrlich
- Lech Fulmyk
- Tadeusz Gardziejewski
- Konstanty Jackiewicz
- Józef Jankowski
- Antoni Jóźwiak
- Jan Kaszuba
- Kazimierz Klimaszewski
- Stanisław Kłoczkowski
- Stanisław Kmieć
- Stanisław Kociołek
- Stefania Kociołek
- Kazimierz Kowaliszyn
- Henryk Kozubski
- Edmund Kuffel
- Wacław Kuzia
- Marian Lisowski
- Henryk Lorenc
- Janina Lorenc
- Adam Mossakowski
- Stefan Olbrecht
- Władysław Olejniczak
- Piotr Orlukiewicz
- Jerzy Piskor
- Jakub Plewa
- Piotr Polański
- Janina Popkiewicz
- Jan Sajewicz
- Stanisław Smoleński, Junior
- Stanisław Smoleński, Senior
- Kazimierz Smoliński
- Antoni Tomszak
- Franciszek Wakerman
- Adolf Franciszek Wawrzyńczyk
- Tomasz Wielgat
- Henryk Wiktorowicz
- Karolina Wiktorowicz
- Tadeusz Wilton
- Tadeusz Wojciechowski
- Adam Żurad
- Index of Names
- Index of Place Names
- MAPS