Jozef Nowak was 17 when his city in Poland was invaded by the Nazis. He got here to Britain to maintain combating – now his grandson Paul is Normal Secretary of the TUC
The names go on and on – 2,165 in complete – and above them lists of cities – 302 from town of Poznan, 308 from Krakow, 316 from Warsaw and 318 from Gdansk.
Above them sits a bronze eagle, the image of the Polish Air Pressure and a part of the nationwide coat of arms. Beneath, an inscription – ‘To the reminiscence of fallen Polish Airmen – Poleglym Lotnikom Polskim’.
“My grandad Joe would have identified many of those names,” says Paul Nowak, Normal Secretary of the TUC, visiting the Polish Air Pressure monument to pay his respects on the eightieth anniversary of VE Day.
“Britain got here into the conflict to face up for Poland. In return Polish individuals put their lives on the road for Britain and to heed a wider name for democracy.
“Joe was one in every of 18,000 Poles who got here to the UK and served within the Air Pressure. He completely would have identified a few of these males who fought and misplaced their lives.
“My granddad by no means talked concerning the conflict. He wasn’t a type of to regale us with tales. However when he got here to remain, he wakened with night time terrors due to his experiences.”
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Jozef Nowak was born in 1912 in Trzebinia, close to Katowice in south-west Poland. When he was 17 years outdated, on September 1, 1939, Trezbinia was bombed by the Luftwaffe on the very first day of the German invasion of Poland and World Struggle Two. 4 days later, invading troopers murdered 97 individuals within the city, which was swiftly annexed into Nazi Germany.
Jozef joined the Polish Air Pressure and was amongst these pushed again by Axis forces by way of France and Belgium, finally touchdown in Casablanca, Morocco, as a part of Allied efforts to liberate North Africa.
“In Casablanca, he confronted a stark alternative,” Nowak says. “He was supplied secure passage to the US, which at the moment was not a part of the conflict, or to be despatched to Britain to hold on the conflict effort.”
18-year-old Jozef selected Britain and was despatched to Liverpool to work as an plane engineer on the Napier manufacturing facility, constructing engines for the Hawker Storm fighter-bombers that fought within the Battle of Britain, wherein 145 Polish airmen flew.
His Polish comrades went on to kind the biggest abroad contingent of the RAF’s battle over the skies of Europe – with round 18 to twenty,000 seeing lively service, and 10 fighter and 4 bomber squadrons staffed completely by Polish personnel.
“It’s necessary to me that there are lots of of 1000’s of tales of individuals like Granddad Joe, who by no means made newspaper headlines, however stood up towards fascism”, Nowak says.
“And, as we mark VE Day, it’s necessary we recognise the contribution of everybody who joined the wrestle for democracy – together with these for whom Britain wasn’t their house. Whether or not you had been British, Polish, French, Indian, Canadian, individuals stood collectively. Some politicians favor to overlook this contribution.
“VE Day isn’t a day for social gathering politics, however I feel it’s actually necessary we mirror on the truth that democracy is underneath menace on each side of the Atlantic. Across the globe, we’ve acquired individuals wrapping themselves of their nationwide flags, who on the identical time are undermining the very values and ideas that make our democratic societies so elementary.
“So, right now, let’s bear in mind the values our grandparents stood up for. For freedom and democracy – but in addition for the proper to carry up your loved ones in an honest neighborhood with an honest job in an honest house, standing beside our neighbours.”
In complete, 2,408 Polish Airmen died throughout World Struggle II, together with those that died in coaching and in flying accidents. “Folks got here collectively not simply to defend a rustic however defend a set of values,” Nowak says.
“Wherever you got here from, there was a way you had been genuinely all on this collectively. And after the conflict individuals like my granddad did as a lot to rebuild Britain as those that had lived in Liverpool all their lives.
“Now, with the populist proper on the rise, this has turn out to be a cautionary story. Democracy doesn’t occur accidentally. It’s one thing you need to struggle to take care of.
“I perceive there may be a number of cynicism on the market. However we’ve seen what the choice to democracy seems like, and that was a legacy my granddad didn’t need to go away behind. We’ve to face up for democracy, imperfect as we would assume it’s.
“The RAF museum shut by at Hendon data that after preliminary suspicions about Polish airmen coming to Britain, over the summer time of 1940 “the individuals of Britain took the East Europeans to their hearts.”
The 1948 memorial to the Polish Airmen, lies in a memorial park in Ruislip, simply off the A40 in West London, near RAF Northolt, which served as the bottom for fighter squadrons. It was designed by the Polish sculptor Mieczyslaw Lubelski, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who had served within the 1944 Warsaw Rebellion and survived a Nazi pressured labour camp.
An inscription on the again of the monument quotes the New Testomony e book of Timothy: “I’ve fought an excellent struggle. I’ve completed my course. I’ve saved the religion.”
For a lot of Polish individuals, VE Day is a second for solemn remembrance, not celebration. As Polish Overseas minister Radosław Sikorski mirrored right now, it was the second Poland “exchanged a German genocidal Nazi occupation for a totalitarian Soviet occupation and we solely emerged into freedom 45 years later.”
Might 8’s echoes are nonetheless felt. “Being right here may be very transferring,” Nowak says, “Nevertheless it’s additionally necessary to be taught the teachings. We must always by no means stand by and watch the weak be oppressed – and we must always by no means appease those that try to bully others on the world stage.
“Appeasement solely encourages those that don’t give a rattling about democracy.
“It’s additionally a reminder of the ambition of that technology 80 years in the past. At a time when the nation and continent had been in ashes, there was a nationwide effort to struggle for the Britain they wished to go away behind to their grandchildren.
“On the eightieth anniversary of VE Day, I’ll bear in mind the technology who had the ambition to rebuild our nation, and democracy that we are able to’t take with no consideration.
“That promise of a greater Britain, that these individuals fought for all these years in the past, is one we are able to’t quit on, and it’s one we have to recommit ourselves to right now, as we bear in mind those that made the final word sacrifice.”
