Today is the final day of my exhibition 'Fragments That Remain' at the Fraserburgh Heritage Centre. What a fantastic 8 months its been!
15 months ago I was approached in Weatherspoons by a member of the Heritage Centre staff and asked if I was the lady who had been telling the Polish stories. An invitation to use the temporary space at the end of the museum building followed and in January 2019 I began to put it all together.
Pre Opening Night. March 2019
Its been exciting- this is my first solo exhibition, and at times the response by participants has been very emotional. I've met some wonderful people, some of whom traveled hours to visit- all keen to remember their parents and grandparents courage and sacrifice, stating that teaching the truth regarding the Poles’ contribution to WW2 and betrayal afterward is long overdue.
I discovered that many people with no direct connection to the War in Poland had no idea that the Poles had largely been unable to return home and became exiles, often never seeing their family again. Most of the soldiers whose descendants I interviewed had been torn from their parents and driven into forced labour in Germany in their early teens, later to be conscripted into the German Army as cannon fodder. These boys were then captured and brought to the UK as POWs before being given the chance to fight in the Polish Army under British command, an opportunity they welcomed.
Polish Soldiers at Inverallochy Airfield. Photo courtesy of the Dyga Family
After the war, stateless and displaced, some of these soldiers fell in love and married girls from ‘the Broch’ where they had been laterally posted. They settled down and raised families, worked hard and buried the pain of their past, giving very little indication of the horrors they had endured. Their children and grandchildren spoke of them with deep pride and affection- but sorrow for their ancestor’s hidden heartache remained close to the surface.
This scenario is repeated thousands of times throughout Britain and other places in the world.
Also included in the Exhibition are the stories of Holocaust survivors, Adam and Alicia Melamed Adam, both of whom lost their entire families in the Shoah. They have a direct connection to my grandmother’s family and have become very dear to me.
Teresa Somkowicz also features long with her daughter, Kika. I traced Teresa from an old photograph with my grandmother I had been sent from Poland in 2015. Teresa was born Princess Teresa Świdrygiełło-Świderska-Wągl , but was sent in a cattle train to Khazakstan with her mother and sister when she was just 10 years old, enduring -40% temperatures.
This Exhibition was intended to highlight the courage and sacrifice of the millions affected as a result of WW2 in Poland- we must never forget. Their voices may be silenced, their memory confined to history but it is time to allow their lives to speak.
I hope to continue to share their stories, through exhibitions and presentations and am currently planning a fresh Exhibition at the Sir Ian Wood Building, Robert Gordon University in February next year.
As I left the Heritage Centre this afternoon, for the last open day, a shed a tear. Thank you to all who have been involved and have helped in any way.
Special thanks to the Fraserburgh Heritage Centre for making this possible, The Polish Consul General in Edinburgh for funding and Grays School of Art for support.
I owe a huge debt to Polish Historians Janusz Ral and Robert Ostrycharz whose expert help and dedication made all the difference.
Also thanks to Magdelina Konieczna for translating several panels to Polish.
This video is for all my lovely descendants' families, for their fathers and others whose lives were forever changed because of the war.
