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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 48| December 2000


The Polish saga in Australia:
the Australian-Polish Community preserves its past

Polish: the language with all those jaw breaking consonant combinations and a grammar which, when even half-mastered, should give full membership to Mensa. Poland: the beautiful country with a fascinating history, whose people as a result of political and economic hardships have sought new homes all over the world.

Kosciuszko, Strzelecki, Zubrzycki, Malinowski, Stefaniak and Kruszelnicki are names known to a wide Australian population. Within the National Library we have Rozmus, Skurowski, Stawowczyk, Wojkowska, Biega and Horky. They get around, these Poles.

Thanks to the persuasive talents of the Director of the Polish Historical Institute in Australia, Andrew Kleeberg OAM, VM, JP, the National Library has received a special collection of material related to the Polish community in Australia.

The Polish Historical Institute in Australia and the Polonica collection were the brainchild of Andrew Kleeberg. He believes that it is the duty of his generation to preserve and secure the past for future generations. Through his own involvement in the Australian–Polish community, Andrew Kleeberg cajoled, persuaded and charmed individuals and organisations to assist in the creation of a basic infrastructure for the collection of documentary material on the experiences of those Poles who made Australia their home after World War II.

On 22 November representatives of the Library and the Institute signed a Deed of Gift which concluded lengthy negotiations to find the collection a permanent home.

Andrew Kleeberg, director, Polish Historical Institute in Australai

Library staff who are also members of the Institute arranged a display of materials which show the many and varied links between the two countries, illustrating the following themes.

Participation of Australian Airmen in the Warsaw Uprising, 1944
An Australia Remembers 1945–1995 initiative which documents the story of 24 Australian flight crew personnel who delivered vital supplies to the Polish Resistance and the Warsaw Uprising. This selection also includes material on the subsequent reunion of six veterans in Townsville in 1995 to unveil a memorial plaque and a second presentation in Bull Creek, WA, 1999, and includes newspaper clippings, correspondence, photographs, personal narratives and other writings, decorations, a commemorative program, maps and official documentation.

Paul Strzelecki
Includes the contribution and influence of Strzelecki on the Newcastle Region as well as details of a Bicentennial exhibition ‘Strzelecki and the first Poles in Newcastle’ and other primary documents.

Immigration stories
Various unpublished accounts of life in Australian immigration camps in Tasmania, Western Australia, 1947–1950. Correspondence relating to the settlement problems of Poles in NSW, 1952–1954, as well as statistics on Polish immigrants in 1978.

Histories
Various unpublished histories of individual Poles in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania, as well as papers of various Polish state and national organisations including the various Federations of Polish Organisations, the Polish Community Information Bureau and the Polish Ex-Servicemen’s Association.

These and other materials recording the diverse strands of the Polish–Australian experience are now located in the Library’s Manuscript collection. Through the initiative of Library staff, the Institute has published in Canberra a bibliography Materials in the National Library of Australia on Poles in Australia, compiled in 1998 by Mark Biega, Wanda Horky, Anna Skurowski and Teresa Wojkowska.
—Joanna Biega

Above: Andrew Kleeberg, Director, Polish Historical Institute in Australia, signing the Deed of Gif. Margy Burn, Assistant Director-General, Australian Collections and Reader Services to his right with Library staff members Teresa Wojkowska and Wanda Horky. Photograph: Damian McDonald

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au

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