The presentation of the album entitled Remembering ? Pamiec II ? Polish Refugees in Hungary 1939-1946 was organised by the Hungarian Embassy in Warsaw, the Office of Polish War Veterans and Victims of Oppression (UDSKiOR) and the Silesian Friendly Society in conjunction with the publisher Rytm. The nearly two hundred guests included cardinal and Bishop of Warsaw Kazimierz Nycz and Hungarian ambassador Róbert
Kiss, as well as several veterans and refugees, and their descendants.
The album was published with the patronage of the Polish president. The writers, former Polish ambassador in Budapest Grzegorz Lubczyk and his wife Krystyna, and the illustrator, graphic artist Krzysztof Ducki, included several hundred images and descriptions in album. They said the first volume gave an overview of the entire story of Polish WWII refugees in Hungary, while the second volume focused on personal stories.
The excerpts from memos and letters present the everyday lives of the mostly civilian refugees, as the soldiers usually fled to Western Europe in order to continue fighting. Some of the refugees? documents that survived were made available by their descendants and an additional 700 photographs were found in the archives at Sárvár.
At the presentation, the president of the Polish actors? association Olgierd Lukaszewicz read excerpts from correspondence between married couples who were forced to separate because of the war. One of these was Kazimierz Gurgul, a representative of the Polish immigrant government in Hungary, who never had the chance to meet his newborn son because he was executed by the Germans at the concentration camp of Mauthausen in 1944.
As a special surprise at Wednesday?s event, Hungarian national guard lieutenant-general György Marton granted managing director of UDSKiOR Jan Ciechanowskinak a golden flag pin which he had received from his father, Polish general Waclaw Scaeovola Wieczorkiewicz. Marton said this gesture was intended to complete a pledge by the Polish general who had always wanted to return the flag pin to his country.
Nearly 120,000 Polish refugees stayed in Hungary during WWII, staying in nearly 200 locations throughout the country between 1939 and 1946.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
