“It has been nearly a year since I began working in germany [sic!] as a Polish Liaison Officer. Never in my life have I had a job so difficult, so demanding, and yet so rewarding. Immediately after the arrival of American troops on the territory of the Reich, we were entrusted with the fate of thousands of our citizens. We found them in appalling conditions: exhausted, starving, ragged, demoralized; at times, I wouldn’t even hesitate to use the word ‘wild’. I remember how, in the first few weeks, we had to travel from village to village and pull our people out of stables, barns, and pigsties (...). German employers were able to humiliate, degrade, and incapacitate these people to such an extent that they did not even ask to change their place of residence or for an improvement in their living conditions.
And now, after a year of hard work, when I can take stock of this entire period, I see what an enormous job has been accomplished. We put Polish books and newspapers into people’s hands; we provided teachers and schools for the children; we reunited families; we found thousands of Polish children in Nazi schools; and we secured a vast amount of property looted from Poland. I could fill entire volumes with my own experiences. I would like, if only it were possible, to come to you for a short visit and introduce you and the rest of the Americans to all these issues,” wrote Lieutenant W. Hałubek on March 25, 1946, to the National Committee of Americans of Polish Descent in New York.
His account aligns with the experiences of other military personnel, representatives of the Polish London-based authorities in the field, and numerous aid workers (including those from the Polish Red Cross), whose task was to provide support to Polish displaced persons in occupied Germany and Austria. After the war ended, several million Poles remained there. They were primarily forced laborers, concentration camp prisoners, and prisoners of war – men, women, and children. Many of them returned to their hometowns on their own as early as the summer and fall of 1945. Others decided to repatriate somewhat later and were thus able to set out on organized transports, most often by rail (until the fall, Soviet transports had priority on the tracks). Finally, hundreds of thousands of people were unable to return to their homes because these were either located in territories annexed by the Soviet Union or had been destroyed, and their family members had perished or been scattered. Tens of thousands more did not return for political reasons. They feared life in communist Poland. Their stay in occupied Germany and Austria began to drag on, and the temporary conditions in the displaced persons camps gradually improved, though they were still far from decent.
From the moment larger groups of Poles began to form, gathered by the Allies in major Assembly Centers, so-called liaison officers began to play a significant role. They were representatives of Allied military missions and humanitarian organizations, such as United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). Their tasks included caring for the liberated Poles and, over time, organizing their repatriation or further emigration. They served as intermediaries between the displaced persons camps and the local occupation authorities. They intervened to improve living conditions, secure food rations and clothing for refugees, registered survivors, and assisted in the search for missing family members. In the first months of freedom, when the legal situation had not yet been clarified, they were the ones who granted or denied permission for marriages between displaced persons. Polish officers played a special role here; they were often former prisoners of war or soldiers of the Polish Armed Forces in the West, who acted as representatives of the Polish government in London in relation to the refugees.
After the Western powers recognized the Provisional Government of National Unity in Warsaw (in July 1945), new liaison officers began arriving in occupied Germany, sent by the communist authorities in Poland. They operated primarily within the structures of the newly established Polish Military Mission in Germany attached to the Allied Control Council. Their arrival led to a sharp political conflict in the camps for displaced persons. The newcomers’ task was to persuade as many Poles as possible to repatriate. Naturally, this led to tensions with the “London-based” liaison officers, who had become the informal political guardians of those refugees who refused to return to their homeland. Thus, officers loyal to the government-in-exile in London (who advised against returning to communist Poland) and new officers from Warsaw (who urged repatriation) operated side by side. Most Polish refugees and former prisoners of war treated the representatives from Warsaw with great reserve. The latter could offer Poles far less than their “London” counterparts, who enjoyed greater trust from the Western Allies and had significantly larger funds allocated for aid at their disposal. Liaison officers loyal to the government in London were also supported by the Polish clergy in Germany, which played a crucial role in shaping anti-communist attitudes among the refugees. The activities of these liaison officers came to an end in mid-1947, when only representatives of the Warsaw authorities remained in the field.
It is worth noting, however, that despite these seemingly clear-cut divisions, there were individuals who held more nuanced views on the situation of the Polish refugees and their future. Lieutenant Józef Hlebowicz, a “London-based” liaison officer from Brunswick, wrote to The National Committee of Americans of Polish Descent on February 7, 1946: “Observing the people and the problems (which you are familiar with mainly through newspapers, and certainly rarely through letters) I have become convinced that those who face no threat of persecution in Poland should return to the country as soon as possible to resume their work, to care for their homes, families, and daily bread. If they wait in camps in Germany for a ‘better tomorrow,’ they will quickly go off the rails and, in the future, become a burden on whatever society they find themselves in.”
Nevertheless, as time passed and the government-in-exile was sidelined in favor of the authorities in Warsaw, former Polish Army officers and anti-communist activists from Polish organizations who remained in the field actively supported the mass emigration of Poles to various corners of the world. Several hundred thousand people left for the United States, and to a lesser extent for the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
By the late 1940s, emigration had become virtually the sole focus of life in the displaced persons camps: the associated procedures, medical examinations, background checks, and the wait for one’s turn. Those who remained in the camps were primarily people who, for various reasons, did not qualify to leave: single mothers raising children, the elderly, the sick, and the disabled. They formed the so-called hard core, a group that posed a particularly difficult problem for the Allies. In the early 1950s, as humanitarian organizations were concluding their activities, it was decided that these individuals, provided they did not wish to be repatriated, would be allowed to remain in Germany.
***
The quotations are taken from documents held in the archives of the Piłsudski Institute in New York. Archival Fonds No. 024 [Polish Refugees/ Displaced Persons in Germany], folder No. 4: Documentation of the London Branch of the Chief of Liaison Officers for the Care of Poles in Germany, 1945–1947.
1. AIP, Col. 024, fol. 4, Letter from Lieutenant W. Hałubek to the National Committee of Americans of Polish Descent in New York, Marburg, March 25, 1946, pp. 65–68.
2. AIP, Col. 024, fol. 4, Letter from Lieutenant J. S. Hlebowicz to the National Committee of Americans of Polish Descent in New York, Brunswick, February 17, 1946, pp. 15–17.
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