These pages of our website are designed to complement the excellent work of our colleague, historian Robert Ostrycharz, on the Polish War Graves in Scotland, thereby adding structure to our “Living Memorial”. While those of our forefathers who lost their lives on active service are almost all honoured on Polish War Grave and Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones, there has never been any coherent effort to commemorate those who survived the War but who, for many reasons, could not return permanently to their Polish homeland. In some cases, that homeland had been torn from pre-war Poland and allocated to the sphere of Russia and its satellite states of the Soviet Union. In others, the pre-war work of men or women would have made them targets for the communist pogroms of cultural or political cleansing. For many, their wartime activities would have put their lives in immediate danger from the authorities or from revenge-seekers. In these pages, parts of our “Living Memorial”, we hope to record the life and death of those exiles.
The initial entries on these pages are drawn from the personal knowledge of our Group’s founders – but, obviously, this is limited. If you find the name of a relative herein and are able to add a photograph of the person or a headstone or information on birth and death, please contact us. If you know of a direct relative or the relative of a friend or colleague whose memory should be honoured and who has not yet come to our attention, please contact us. Our volunteers will make every effort to ensure that all those exiles who lived out their life in Scotland are recorded and honoured. Some of those who were not on active service in the armed forces or the auxiliary services, such as Polish Red Cross and the like, should also be honoured. In particular, those “Siberaks” who survived the deportations from Kresy and other areas to Siberia are worthy of honour whether they served in the forces or not. Theirs was a sacrifice for freedom in its own right. We need your help to honour them.
