The Polish Resettlement Act 1947 was the first ever mass immigration legislation of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. It offered British citizenship to over 250,000 displaced Polish troops on British soil who had fought against

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and opposed the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

takeover of their homeland. The act also supplied a labour force to the demands of war-torn Britain.

Background

The

Polish contribution to World War II In World War Two, the Polish armed forces were the fourth largest Allied forces in Europe, after those of the Soviet Union, United States, and Britain. Poles made substantial contributions to the Allied effort throughout the war, fighting on lan ...

was outstanding, and directly led to the Polish Resettlement Act 1947 and the formation of the

Polish British British Poles, alternatively known as Polish British people or Polish Britons, are ethnic Poles who are citizens of the United Kingdom. The term includes people born in the UK who are of Polish descent and Polish-born people who reside in the UK ...

community as it exists today. In advance of the war, the Polish Cypher Bureau broke the early version of the Enigma machine and gave their knowledge to the British, forming the basis for British cryptographic breakthroughs that produced the

Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ' ...

intelligence that was a key factor in many Allied successes during the war. The majority of Poles came to the United Kingdom to help the Allied war effort after the Nazi-Soviet Pact led to the

occupation of Poland Occupation commonly refers to: * Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, t ...

in 1939. By 1940, with the fall of France, the Polish President, Prime Minister and the Polish government in exile transferred to London, along with a first wave of at least 20,000 soldiers and airmen. Thousands more followed throughout the war. Poles formed the fourth-largest Allied armed force in Europe after the Soviets, the Americans and the combined troops of the British Empire. Poles were the largest group of

non-British personnel in the RAF during the Battle of Britain The Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm had included personnel from outside the United Kingdom from before the beginning of the Second World War, and many served in the Battle of Britain in summer 1940. Many of these volunteers were British ...

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

had a large section of covert, elite Polish troops and close cooperation with the Polish resistance. The Polish Army under British high command participated in the Battle of Monte Cassino, the Battle of the Falaise Gap, the

Battle of Arnhem The Battle of Arnhem was a battle of the Second World War at the vanguard of the Allied Operation Market Garden. It was fought in and around the Dutch city of Arnhem, the town of Oosterbeek, the villages Wolfheze and Driel and the vicinity f ...

, the Siege of Tobruk and the liberation of many European cities including

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

and Breda. By July 1945, 228,000 troops of the

Polish Armed Forces in the West The Polish Armed Forces in the West () refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. Polish forces were also raised within Soviet territories; th ...

were serving under the high command of the British Army. Many of these men and women were originally from the

Kresy Eastern Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands ( pl, Kresy, ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the History of Poland (1918–1939), interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural ...

region of eastern Poland including cities such as Lwów and

Wilno Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

. They had been deported from Kresy to the Soviet

gulags The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...

when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany occupied Poland in 1939 in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. When two years later Churchill and Stalin formed an alliance against Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the

Anders Army Anders' Army was the informal yet common name of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in the 1941–42 period, in recognition of its commander Władysław Anders. The army was created in the Soviet Union but, in March 1942, based on an understand ...

and marched to Persia to create the

II Corps (Poland) The Polish II Corps ( pl, Drugi Korpus Wojska Polskiego), 1943–1947, was a major tactical and operational unit of the Polish Armed Forces in the West during World War II. It was commanded by Lieutenant General Władysław Anders and fought wi ...

under British high command.

Yalta

The Polish II Corps was instrumental in the Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy, and its members hoped to return to Kresy in an independent and democratic Poland at the end of the War. But at

Yalta Yalta (: Я́лта) is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Cri ...

, Churchill agreed Stalin should keep the Soviet gains that

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

had endorsed in the Nazi-Soviet Pact, including Kresy, and carry out Polish population transfers. Consequently, Churchill had agreed that tens of thousands of veteran Polish troops under British command should lose their

homes to the Soviet Union, with the implication that relatives including wives and children would be at the mercy of the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

. In reaction, thirty officers and men from the

committed suicide.pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003 Churchill explained his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a

vote of confidence A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...

. Many MPs openly criticised Churchill over Yalta and voiced strong loyalty to Britain's Polish allies. Some reporters felt Churchill was not confident Poland would be the independent and democratic country Polish troops could return to, because the prime minister also said: 'His Majesty's Government will never forget the debt they owe to the Polish troops... I earnestly hope it will be possible for them to have citizenship and freedom of the British empire, if they so desire.' During the debate, 25 MPs risked their careers to draft an amendment protesting against Britain's tacit acceptance of Poland's domination by the Soviet Union. These members included

Arthur Greenwood Arthur Greenwood, (8 February 1880 – 9 June 1954) was a British politician. A prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s, Greenwood rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department f ...

; Sir Archibald Southby; Viscount Dunglass; Lord Willoughby de Eresby and Victor Raikes. After the failure of the amendment, Henry Strauss, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country, resigned from the government in protest at the British treatment of Poland.

Legislation

When the Second World War ended,

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

reneged on his Yalta promises and a Communist government was installed in Poland. Still, the British government wanted to maintain cordial relations with Stalin, and so tried to persuade Poles in the UK to leave. Most Poles felt betrayed by their wartime allies. They refused to return to Poland, because of a range of reasons: the Soviet repression of Polish citizens, Soviet conduct around the 1944

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...

, the

Trial of the Sixteen The Trial of the Sixteen ( pl, Proces szesnastu) was a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet authorities in Moscow in 1945. All captives were kidnapped by the NKVD secret service and falsely accused of var ...

and other executions of pro-democracy Poles such as

former members A former is an object, such as a template, gauge or cutting die, which is used to form something such as a boat's hull. Typically, a former gives shape to a structure that may have complex curvature. A former may become an integral part of the f ...

of the

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) est ...

including

Emil Fieldorf August Emil Fieldorf ('' nom de guerre''; “''Nil''”; 20 March 1895 – 24 February 1953) was a Polish brigadier general who served as deputy commander-in-chief of the Home Army after the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising (August 1944 – ...

and

Witold Pilecki Witold Pilecki (13 May 190125 May 1948; ; codenames ''Roman Jezierski, Tomasz Serafiński, Druh, Witold'') was a Polish World War II cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader. As a youth, Pilecki joined Polish underground s ...

, and finally, the creation of the Eastern Bloc. The result was the Polish Resettlement Act 1947, Britain's first mass immigration law. Large numbers of Poles, after occupying resettlement camps of the

Polish Resettlement Corps The Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC; pl, Polski Korpus Przysposobienia i Rozmieszczenia) was an organisation formed by the British Government in 1946 as a holding unit for members of the Polish Armed Forces who had been serving with the British Arm ...

, later settled in London, and industrial areas of the North, while many other Poles were recruited as European Volunteer Workers. Others settled in the British Empire, forming large

Polish Canadian Polish Canadians ( pl, Polonia w Kanadzie, french: Canadiens Polonais) are citizens of Canada with Polish ancestry, and Poles who immigrated to Canada from abroad. At the 2016 Census, there were 1,106,585 Canadians who claimed full or partial ...

and Polish Australian communities. In the 1951 Census, the Polish-born population of the UK numbered some 162,339, up from 44,642 in 1931. At the same time, Britain's social and economic areas had been hard hit by the Second World War, and to rebuild itself physically and financially it required a workforce to do it quickly and effectively. The Polish Resettlement Act enabled Poles to settle in Britain and provide labour. They formed much of the

community as it existed prior to Poland's accession to the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

in 2004, and any immigration to Britain which followed.

References

External links

* *{{cite web , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080107095428/http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/migrantancestors/polish.htm , archivedate=2008-01-07 , url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/migrantancestors/polish.htm , title=Polish Resettlement , publisher=The National Archives United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1947 Economic history of the United Kingdom Immigration legislation Immigration law in the United Kingdom Poland–United Kingdom relations

Background

Yalta

Legislation

See also

References

External links