Interesting memorial about 212 Polish soldiers

Memorial in Portsmouth dedicated to the Polish soldiers who were exiled in 1831. Seems like the local government weren't too happy about the soldiers being rescued and settled in Portsmouth, so the local population took it upon themselves to help.

Well done, a good thread Dave.

that was nice of them

particularly as only 19 years earlier the Poles had fought the British

I was unaware of this. There seem to be so many 'Polish tidbits' in history that have gone unnoticed and it is a delight to learn new information such as this. Thank you.

It is a really interesting part of history. I came across it after watching the bbc program "who do you think you are?" which takes celebrities and finds out their family histories. Len Goodman is who they were following and his great-great grandfather was a Polish "trooper" in the Krakow Cavalry during the November rising in Poland. Turns out his G-G-grandfather won a major battle just outside Warsaw but in the end they were defeated soon after. They fled to Prussia after the Prussian king offered them exile. Only a thousand made it there and to make things worse the Prussians then decided they wanted rid of them. 212 were put on a boat to N.America but due to storms the ship had to dock in Portsmouth. The Polish soldiers were welcomed in Portsmouth and the local community settled them there instead of sending them to America. Thats the story I'm no historian of Polish history.

This is the link to the program, most of the second part is dedicated to this uprising in Poland.

sorry to say... it's blocked to those of us outside the uk.

auch I'll download it and post it on some site ;) though not tonight.

it's on yt

Yes Polish history is very interesting and dramatic. Ready scenario for movies, nobody interested though, they prefer to go 101 times explore theme of Robin Hood or some other overused story.

thanks!


I really believe so, I think that's why Norman Davies loves the country sooooo much.

Lols, damn it, I was going to post on this the other week :)
and, any regular viewers like me thinking, " Ok,any minute now surely some sad klezmer music and a shot of a synagogue or the railway tracks at auschwitz.." but bugger me sideways for once it wasnt Jew Do You Think You Are.

Len Goodman, TVs most surprising Goy !!

ps, Apparently they are considered Polands first official community in the UK :)

He was good in it, seemed really enthusiastic about finding out his GG-granfather came from Poland.


But who was this Karl Marx???

Edit, I got him. ;) dumb me for a second :D

Thanks for the info mate. Great story that I was totally unaware of. Cheers.

Good on the Poms of Portsmouth!

I was reading up on this, at the time of posting i was writing this down on pf. It really seems to me something that has gone missing in the British - Polish relationship. These Poles were substantial to setting up the Polish democratic society in London that Marx also became a member off. These are the guys that set about dragging Polish pilots back to the UK during ww2.

Small unknown facts bring about great things.

Edit@ also it turns out the memorial was made many a year ago, but ran out of funding, so local Poles and Brits in Portsmouth gave the funding. Nice to actually have a happy story on here ;)

Merged: Cichociemni Polish guerilla fighters honored

Senior officers and veterans from Polish and British special forces are to gather in London to mark the 75th anniversary of a little-known chapter of the secret war against the Nazis.


theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/10/honouring-poland-silent-unseen-fighters-resistance-nazi-british

Cichociemni were a great force but British were only observers in it, so why are they included in the gathering? It is Polish who did all the work.

Perhaps you missed:

Perhaps because the British trained a lot of them in England. They were under the SOE, however they were the only "foreign" branch of SOE to come under local control (the AK) when in the field.