Impressions: Polish Soldiers’ Brief Experience of South Africa during the Second World War

Abstract

The Second World War had a tremendous influence on the people who lived through it. For those Poles who were forced by the conflict to travel across continents, this was also an opportunity to explore the vast British Empire first hand. On the way back to Europe, they often lived among and worked with people very different from themselves. The present paper attempts to elaborate on the experience of Polish servicemen who were transferred through the Union of South Africa during the war. Published accounts provide a rare glimpse at the imperial territories of the time and the Polish attitude towards imperialism. What was the soldiers’ impression of that remote country, and how was it influenced by their origins? Where did the authors position themselves when confronted with the exotic (and the non-exotic) Other? The study aims to answer these questions by comparing and contrasting excerpts from selected war narratives.