The push to get rid of the Poles

Polish troops parade along Leven prom' during the war.

If I was asked what was the greatest lesson I had learned in all my years as a reporter my answer would be, “There is always another side to every story, and each side comes with more layers than you can ever imagine.”

History is like that. The more you read, the more avenues you venture down and what perhaps seemed simple becomes complex. The black and whites all turn grey.

So historical superficiality reigns supreme, even on a personal level. The older I become, it seems the less I know – be that the realities of the Great War, the supposed heroes and villains of the last century, the many disturbing dimensions of World War Two, the community I grew up in. All of these and more, probably everything, is so much more complicated than I ever imagined.

That realisation also brings so much regret. I never took the opportunity to quiz my great-grandparents, grandparents and parents. In some instances I was too young to understand but certainly, as far as the previous two generations went, I was old enough but, unfortunately, not interested enough. Now it is too late.

And that makes it particularly frustrating when another layer of history reveals itself and you realise that you could have had first-hand accounts of what shaped the lives of those who shaped us. And how, in many instances, attitudes have not changed.

I grew up aware that there had been anti-Polish sentiment in my community. Graffiti such as “Be a man, go home” was daubed outside the homes of some of the ex-soldiers who settled in Fife. But I was led to believe this was rare but I had a wake-up call when I was 16 and my girlfriend received a black eye from her father for dating “the son of a dirty Pole”.

Perhaps, I would have been more aware of that undercurrent if my father had immediately settled here after the war. However, through the schemes set up when hostilities ended, he and my mother emigrated to Argentina. They returned in the 1950s and, by then, the ill-feeling towards Poles had, if not disappeared, certainly diminished.

Of course I now understand what was going on. Most of the Poles who served during the war opposed the Soviet system and wanted no part of a socialist federation, controlled by Stalin in Moscow. As a result, returning to the motherland was perilous, possibly fatal. My father received ‘coded’ messages from his family warning him not to return and it would be the dawning of the 1960s before he could be reunited temporarily with his family behind the Iron Curtain, and then his protection was his British naturalisation.

But whatever his tale, he missed the first hand experience of the wider local community’s attitude to the Poles just as the war ended. He was based in Germany then there was a brief stay in the UK before his marriage and departure to South America.

For others in my home area of Fife, the ‘Polish question’ at that time was a controversial and heated issue. It received a full airing on October 16, 1945, in the Jubilee Theatre, Leven. Ironically, just 15 years later the Jubilee would be my playground, and a stone’s throw from where we lived.

Without pulling back too many layers, such as the trade union support for the USSR, which, at the time, is both valid and understandable, the 70,000 Poles in Scotland were seen as a major threat to jobs, and likely to be stealing work from the soon-to-be demobbed Scots.

The Jubiliee, location of
the 1945 public meeting.

Around 600 people from Leven, Buckhaven and Methil, crammed into the theatre for what turned out to be an ill-tempered meeting over the early repatriation of the Polish exiles.

“Platform speakers and speakers from the body of the hall were applauded, jeered and howled down … and the fact there were mixed feelings on the matter was obvious by the frequent interruptions, caused to a considerable extent by womenfolk,” stated one newspaper report. “There were times when the meeting got beyond the control of the chairman and threatened to become a farce.”

The Fife Free Press reported that the feeling was that the Polish soldiers were billeted and “having a good time” in Scotland and if they were not sent back there would be a work crisis.

“Polish soldiers were being trained in building and other skilled trades while many of our own countrymen, already skilled in various kinds of trades, were still serving in the occupied countries of Europe and the Far East,” reported the Press.

One speaker pointed out that Scotland, prior to the war, had been designated a depressed region so the country was in no position “to cater for immigrants”.

A resolution was then put forward for the “immediate repatriation” of all Polish forces.

There was an amendment from the floor, taking into account the stance of the British League for European Freedom, that the Polish troops should not be forced to return to Poland.

That was challenged by one spaker who stated: “If the amendment is adopted you will be seriously jeopardising the happiness of the country in not being able to provide employment and homes for our own people.”

That prompted a stern rebuke from a local minister, the Rev. G.J. Edwards, who said: “I do not stand in support of the Polish troops but I strongly deprecate the inhospitable and antagonistic attitude which has taken the place of a very friendly and harmonious relationship.”

The amendment went to the vote first, drawing 110 hands in support. No count was taken for the resolution given the show of hands indicated an overwhelming majority for the motion: “That the Leven Town Council follow the example of Peebles Town Council and pass a resolution urging the immediate repatriation of the Polish Forces in Scotland.”

Following that historic decision, it was agreed to recruit volunteers and organise a Levenmouth-wide petition to send the Poles home with the signatures being forwarded to the Secretary of State for Scotland.

As it was, forced repatriation did not come to pass, but the occasion did offer a valuable lesson, one that has been lost from local history. The fears and the sentiment expressed then still, unfortunately, have a resonance today.