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POLSKA B RI TANNI CA

CZE SŁAW SIEGIEDA

P O L S K A B RI TAN N I C A

RRB PHOTOBOOKS BRISTOL

Czesław Siegieda was born in a Nissen hut in a resettlement camp at Burton-on-the-Wolds, Leicestershire, in 1954. His parents were Polish refugees; they had fled their homeland to arrive in Britain after WW2. From an early age Siegieda showed an interest in photography, and by the age of 13 had set up a home-made darkroom in his house and was starting to record his family and surroundings. In 1973, he joined a course run jointly by Trent Polytechnic and Derby College of Art, studying photography, and simultaneously commenced documenting the Polish community in Loughborough where he lived. This community was very familiar to him and the intimacy is reflected well in his images. He photographed in the community’s social club and homes, and in particular documented the Catholic traditions that had been so faithfully exported from Poland. In this collection we also see venues such as St Briavel’s Polish scout house, Gloucestershire, and the Polish war graves cemetery in Newark on Trent. If you were to glance through this folio, apart from odd presence of a Ford Cortina and a strange three-wheeled vehicle (a Robin Reliant), you wouldn’t think the images were taken in the UK at all. Poland is one of the most Catholic countries on the planet and the desire to retain national customs and traditions is central to this set of images. As well as refugees, Poles have always travelled to Britain in search of work. I once photographed the now retired Polish miners who came to work the Midland pit region after WW2 when labour was so short. More recently, since Poland joined the EU, we have had a steady flow of Polish builders, happy to work hard and often returning to the homeland with enough savings to buy a house. These images convey a strong sense of family and community. This is a community in which people look out for one other, worship and play together.They appear quite self contained and almost insular in their host country. But perhaps the most engaging element is the intimacy that Czesław has achieved; everyone knows who he is. Yes, it’s Helena’s son again, he is one of us, so no need to bother. He effectively becomes invisible. I am a missionary when it comes to the value of documentary photography and here is an example of what can be achieved. Getting to know, and to record one small slice of life in Britain so thoroughly and effectively is an achievement that has to be celebrated. Rarely do you encounter a project of such empathy and thoroughness and I am delighted that, forty years after they were taken, these images are finally being published in this handsome book.

Martin Parr

Tadeusz, Józef and Helena, Loughborough, England | 1976

Helena (my mother), Loughborough, England | 1977 Overleaf: Breakfast - Danuta and Helena, Loughborough, England | 1977 Tadeusz taking lunch, Loughborough, England | 1976

Helena exclaiming her heartfelt thanks to God, Loughborough, England | 1977

My brothers Józef and Zygmunt with my sister Danuta, Loughborough, England | 1976

Helena, Loughborough, England | 1976

Tadeusz, Helena and my sister in church, a few days before my sister’s wedding, Loughborough, England | 1976

Józef and Tadeusz (son and father), Loughborough, England | 1976

Józef waiting to go to church for his First Holy Communion, Loughborough, England | 1976

First Holy Communion, Loughborough, England | 1976

First Holy Communion Party, Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976

Polish Priest, Loughborough, England | 1976 Overleaf: Polish Saturday morning school in the kitchen of the Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976 Religious Instruction, Polish Saturday Morning School, Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976

Christmas nativity play rehearsal, Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976

Saint Nicholas (Father Christmas) and Devils, Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976

Saint Nicholas Day, Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976

Angels and Devils, Saint Nicholas Day, Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976

The Steps, Polish Catholic Church, Loughborough, England | 1975 Overleaf: The Steps, Polish Catholic Church, Loughborough, England | 1975 The Steps, Polish Catholic Church, Loughborough, England | 1975

The Steps, Polish Catholic Church, Loughborough, England | 1975

Tadeusz and the Priest’s Hat, Loughborough, England | 1976

Mr. Franciszek Malik, Chairman, Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976

A meeting of minds, Polish Social Club, Loughborough, England | 1976 Overleaf: Father Juliusz Kaczorowski (standing), Polish Social Club, True Lovers Walk, Loughborough, England | 1976 Polish Priest, Polish Social Club, Loughborough | 1976

Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1978

Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1976 Overleaf: Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1976 Annual Fête, Holy Family of Nazareth Convent School, Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1976

Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1976

Two Polish Flags, Annual Fête, Divine Mercy College, Fawley Court, Oxfordshire, England | 1981

Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1976 Overleaf: Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1978 Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1978

Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1978

Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1978 Overleaf: Annual Fête, Divine Mercy College, Fawley Court, Oxfordshire, England | 1981 Fawley Court, Oxfordshire, England | 1981

Fawley Court, Oxfordshire, England | 1981

Annual Fête, St Briavels Polish Scout House, Gloucestershire, England | 1979

Fawley Court, Oxfordshire, England | 1981 Overleaf: St Briavels Polish Scout House, Gloucestershire, England | 1979 St Briavels Polish Scout House, Gloucestershire, England | 1979

St Briavels Polish Scout House, Gloucestershire, England | 1979

Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1977 Overleaf: St Briavels Polish Scout House, Gloucestershire, England | 1979 Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1977

St Briavels Polish Scout House, Gloucestershire, England | 1979⁣

Annual Corpus Christi Event, Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978 Overleaf: Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978 Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978

Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978

St Briavels Polish Scout House, Gloucestershire, England | 1979

Pitsford Hall, Northamptonshire, England | 1976

Father Juliusz Kaczorowski, Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978

Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978

Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978 Overleaf: Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978 Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978

Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire | 1978

St Briavels Polish Scout House, Gloucestershire, England | 1979 Overleaf: Katyń Memorial, Gunnersbury Cemetery, Chiswick, London England | 1980 Katyń Memorial, Gunnersbury Cemetery, Chiswick, London England | 1980

Polish War Graves Cemetery, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England | 1980

Polish War Graves Cemetery, Newark-on-Trent, England | 1980 Overleaf: Polish War Graves Cemetery, Newark-on-Trent, England | 1978 Polish War Graves Cemetery, Newark-on-Trent, England | 1976

Polish War Graves Cemetery, Newark-on-Trent, England | 1976

Funeral Parlour, Loughborough, England | 1974

Polish priest on his way to a funeral, Loughborough, England | 1975

Funeral, Loughborough, England | 1975

All Souls’ Day, Loughborough Cemetery, England | 1976

The photographs featured in this book were originally

permanently. This group were not fleeing the Nazis but the

conceived by Czesław Siegieda as an undergraduate documentary

Communists; their war had been dictated less by the actions

project whilst he was a student of Visual Communications

of Hitler than those of Stalin. Their odyssey took them from

at Trent Polytechnic during the mid-1970s. Born in 1954

eastern Poland to prison camps and collective farms in Siberia

in a Polish Resettlement Camp in Burton on the Wolds in

and Kazakhstan, thence to Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Italy,

Leicestershire, Siegieda embarked on the project out of a

Africa, India, and, finally, to England.

vague sense that the world in which he had grown up – a world of distinct customs and rituals drawn from pre-war Poland –

Siegieda’s mother, Helena, was born in 1923 in the village

would not survive the passing of his parents’ generation. What

of Zaleszane in the Sarny district of eastern Poland (now in

he could not have known at the time was that the resulting

Western Ukraine), where her father was a forester. She was

collection of images would stand alone as a rare – possibly unique

17 years old when, in February 1940, her family received a

- portrait of the lives of a generation of Poles who arrived in this

nocturnal visit from two Soviet NKVD officers, accompanied

country as refugees shortly after the Second World War. Their

by a guard. The family were told to pack some belongings in

experience has, until now, remained largely hidden from

preparation for an imminent departure, then they were taken

public view.

to a train station and loaded onto cattle trucks, along with thousands of other men, women and children and deported to

Like many people whose parents come from ‘elsewhere’,

a labour camp near Archangelsk, Siberia. Here they remained

Siegieda lived his early life as two people: Polish Czesław and

in conditions of appalling hardship for over a year.

British Jan (at school he exchanged his first name for an easierto-pronounce confirmation name). At home Siegieda spoke

The context for Helena’s deportation was the Molotov-

Polish, ate Polish food, observed Polish holidays. Outside,

Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union

he was British, or tried to be. But Czesław/Jan had grown up

which set the stage for the opening scenes of World War II.

amongst a group of people whose wartime experiences had

A secret protocol determined that after the war Poland would

taken them on an odyssey of barely imaginable magnitude: a

be divided in two, with Hitler taking the west of the country

journey halfway across the world, marked by intense hardship

and Stalin the east. Accordingly, some two weeks after the

and suffering. Most had lost family members in the process; all

Nazi invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939, the Red

had lost their country. Focused on rebuilding their lives in exile,

Army crossed Poland’s eastern border and occupied the region

they spoke little of what they had suffered, but the journeys they

known in Polish as kresy (borderlands). Some months later, the

had made marked them for the rest of their lives.

deportations began, hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens who stood in the way of the establishment of the Soviet states

Most British people are vaguely aware that the association

of Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine were removed and

between Poland and Britain dates largely from the Second

taken east to survive as best they could in labour camps and

World War, that we went to war over Poland, and that Polish

collective farms spread across the harsh landscape of Siberia

pilots fought in the Battle of Britain. Beyond that, few know

and Kazakhstan.

precisely how it was that so many Poles ended up staying in the UK, or are aware of the extraordinary journeys they made

The number of Polish citizens deported to the Soviet Union

to get here. They came in two main waves, the first arriving in

during 1940 and 1941 has never been precisely established: the

1940, a contingent of 20-30,000 Polish citizens that included

lowest figure is 300,000, the highest over a million. The real

the government-in-exile and members of the armed forces

number is hard to estimate since so many died from starvation,

who had managed to flee Poland in September 1939 after the

sickness, exhaustion or the cold. It was only when the German

Nazi invasion. Less well known, but far greater in number, are

army attacked the Soviet Union on 22nd June 1941 that the

the quarter of a million Polish citizens who arrived in the UK

situation suddenly changed. Overnight, Stalin became an ally,

after the war, over 120,000 of whom eventually settled here

Churchill and Roosevelt’s new best hope of defeating Hitler.

In July 1941, an agreement was signed between the Polish

Conference of February 1945; Poland was under communist

Prime Minister, General Wladysław Sikorski, and the Soviet

control and those eastern borderlands - the kresy - whence the vast

Ambassador, Ivan Maisky, re-establishing diplomatic relations

majority of the Poles who served in the British Army came were

between the two countries. They also agreed to the creation of

now permanently incorporated into the Soviet Union. The

a Polish army on Soviet soil under the command of General

kresy Poles had no homes to return to; even if they could, few

Wladysław Anders, and to the liberation of the hundreds of

would risk arrest or persecution by returning to communist-

thousands of Polish civilians and military personnel who

ruled Poland.

were currently being held on Soviet territory. Controversially named an ‘amnesty’ (the Polish view being that you cannot

The thorny question of what to do with thousands of Polish

grant an amnesty to people who have committed no crime),

citizens who had fought loyally for the Allies but had nowhere

the agreement set in motion a mass movement on an

to live was eventually resolved by the 1947 Polish Resettlement

unprecedented scale as thousands of Polish citizens - starving,

Act which granted Poles who had served in the British armed

penniless, dressed in rags - began to make their way from their

forces, and their families, the right to settle permanently in the

places of exile, all heading south towards the newly-forming

UK. To facilitate their entry into British life they could join

Polish army.

the Polish Resettlement Corps, a quasi-military organisation which would give them a salary, accommodation and training

From Archangelsk to one of the muster points of the Polish

for a period of up to two years. Accommodation was in

Army in Totskoye is a journey of over 2,000 km. From Totskoye

Resettlement Camps dotted all over the country, former

to the port of Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea, whence the

army and RAF barracks consisting mainly of nissen huts (or

vast throngs of civilians and soldiers were evacuated to Iran,

beczki śmiechu, as they were swiftly nicknamed, meaning

is the same distance again. Who knows how Helena and her

‘barrels of laughs’). Some families stayed only briefly, others

family made it from their place of exile to freedom? Only the

remained in the camps for several years. It was in a resettlement

very toughest survived. In the spring and summer of 1942 they

camp in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, that Helena - now

sailed on overcrowded boats across the Caspian Sea to Bandar

aged 26 - met Siegieda’s father, Mieczysław. Aged 31, he

Azali in Iran, thence to Tehran. Here, the soldiers travelled

had fought at Monte Cassino in the 4th Carpathian Rifle

on to Iraq for training, later coming under British Command

Battalion (little is known of his earlier war experiences).

and travelling to Egypt, Palestine and Italy where they took

After they married, the couple moved to another resettlement

part, most notably, in the 1944 Battle of Monte Cassino. The

camp at Burton on the Wolds, Leicestershire, where Czesław

women and children, meanwhile, were transported to refugee

was born. In 1957, the family moved to a terraced house in

camps across various parts of the British Empire and its former

Loughborough, Leicestershire, which is where many of these

colonies. Mothers with children were sent to Africa, orphans

photographs were taken.

and unaccompanied children to India. Helena, her sister and her father travelled from Iran to the port of Mombasa, thence

Like all immigrant communities, the Poles had brought with

to a camp at Nyabyeya in the Masindi district, Uganda. After

them customs and rituals to which they clung as a reminder

the privations of Siberia, it was a small paradise. They were

of the life they had left behind: the Catholic rites of mass,

to remain here until 1948 when, with all the inhabitants of

confession, confirmation, Easter, Christmas, baptisms and

the Masindi camp, they travelled from Mombasa to England,

burials; Saturday schools where children were sent to learn

arriving in Southampton on August 15th.

about Polish culture from teachers whose earnest desire was that the next generation should not forget their heritage; the Scouts,

This latest journey might have been the final stepping-stone to

which has a strong tradition in Poland; commemorations of

the longed-for return home to Poland, except that the situation

important moments in Polish history such as the death of

in Poland now made that impossible. Most of eastern Europe

General Sikorski or the 1940 Katyń Massacre. These rituals

had been ceded to Stalin by the US and Great Britain at the Yalta

formed the background to Siegieda’s childhood.

At home, life was tough. For many of those who had arrived

80 images from an archive that consists of over 300 photographs.

as adults, the transition to British life was never fully made:

The interest in Siegieda’s photographs comes, ironically, at

speaking little English, they could not access the opportunities

a time when many of the rituals and customs depicted in

open to those with language skills. For Helena, the only option

these photographs have been revived by a new generation of

available was factory work, while Mieczysław worked as a

Polish immigrants to the UK: the post-2004 arrivals following

labourer in a foundry in Melton Mowbray. When Mieczysław

Poland’s accession to the EU. This substantial community,

was killed in a motorbike accident in 1964 it was his ten-year-

now numbering almost one million settled citizens, has

old son who had to step in as interpreter for his mother.

brought new life to the Saturday schools, churches and community halls built by an older generation whose traumatic

How visible is the trauma that underpinned the lives of the

wartime experiences are as foreign to younger Poles as they

adults depicted in these photographs? The pictures were taken

are to the British, and whose history has thus been doubly

in the mid-1970s to early 1980s, over thirty years after the

forgotten. The great charm of these images, however, resides

end of the war. What they show us, more than anything, is

not in their foreignness but their familiarity. The Catholic

a close-knit community with a distinct set of customs and

rites and Polish customs may not always be familiar, but the

rituals. Whilst many of Siegieda’s images display a sharp eye

humorous observations of bored teenagers, shy children,

for the absurd and all are marked by a visible affection for his

officious old men and gossiping old women are universal. The

subjects, his photographs of his close family are notable for

best photographs speak to all of us: we may know little of the

their intimacy. His mother Helena, though physically robust,

history of the people they depict, but we can all relate to the

looks careworn and vulnerable, clutching a bucket of vegetable

human narrative which unfolds in every scene.

peelings or a picture of the Virgin Mary like a life raft whilst her husband (Czesław’s stepfather) hovers in the background, as if ready to lend a hand if needed but not wishing to intrude. For

Jane Rogoyska, April 2020

a young photographer who had lost his father at a young age,

Author and historian

part of the impetus to record the lives of those around him must surely have derived from a profound sense of their fragility. For many years the archive remained private, initially out of respect for the sensitivities of his parents’ generation: nervous of their position as ‘guests’ in a foreign land, they were determined not to draw attention to themselves. This initial impulse of discretion soon gave way to the more prosaic demands of life and work. For decades the negatives sat unheeded in a drawer until, in 2018, two years after his mother’s death, Siegieda decided that it was time to bring them out into the world. The process of digitising the archive went hand in hand with the creation of a website and the release of images on social media, posting photographs on Instagram in the expectation that they might be of niche interest to a small number of followers. The response was as overwhelming as it was unexpected; the photographs attracted the attention of many notable photographers, including Martin Parr, who encouraged Siegieda to publicise the work more widely. The result is this book, which presents a cross-section of

Helena, six months before her death, Devon, England | 2015

RRB Photobooks, 2020 Photographs © Czesław Siegieda Introductory text © Martin Parr Essay Text © Jane Rogoyska Design © Jessamine Thoemmes-Tondowski Printed at Narayana Press, Denmark ISBN 9781916057524 rrbphotobooks.com Special Thanks to the Polish Cultural Institute in London