New Zealand's First Refugees: Pahiatua's Polish Children

On 1 November 1944 a total of 733 Polish children and their 105 guardians landed in Wellington Harbour in New Zealand. Together they had shared the fate of 1.7 million Poles who had been ethnically cleansed from their homes in eastern Poland by the Russian Secret Police, under Stalin’s orders at the start of World War II, and deported in cattle wagons to forced-labour camps thousands of miles away throughout Siberia and the Arctic Circle. Life was brutal – subzero temperatures, constant hunger, disease and death surrounded them. 

Of those 1.7 million, 1 million died and 200,000 are still unaccounted for in Stalin’s genocide. This group of children, mostly orphans or having lost family members, were the lucky ones. Through the tides of wartime politics they fled from their bondage, found temporary refuge in Iran, and were finally offered a safe and permanent home in New Zealand. 

Their story is one of remarkable survival against all odds in war and successfully integrating into a foreign country. 

This is their book. These are their stories.