The welcome mat is laid out for the return of Polish refugee children in Pahiatua, where their arrival 80 years ago has been wound into the fabric of the town's history
A little known slice of New Zealand war history is remembered in Pahiatua, the town that welcomed 733 Polish refugee children 80 years ago and has embraced them ever since
If you've ever taken a stroll along Wellington's waterfront you've probably seen the little plaque that tells the story of the Polish children of Pahiatua.
On the 31st of October 1944, 733 Polish refugee children and 105 adult caregivers sailed into Wellington Harbour on the USS General Randall. On the first of November, they settled in the Polish Children's Camp in Pahiatua.
Their stories are incredible.
Sent to the ends of the Earth after four years of hardship, starvation, and imprisonment, most of them losing all or some of their families, they must have wondered if they'd ever see their homeland again.
When they arrived, they were put on a train and shepherded into a former prisoner of war camp near Palmerston North, and things could have worked out badly.
But they didn't - the children were feted, welcomed, looked after, and fostered; and assured that the gates of the camp would always remain open.
And 80 years later, last weekend, many of the surviving children returned to Pahiatua, the town laying out the welcome mat as it did all those years ago.
Journalist Peter Bale wrote a Listener cover story on this, and he was there too.
"Every shop had Polish flags; each shop window had a story of one of the kids written in it - the Pahiatua community really got behind it. The elderly survivors of the Polish children were overwhelmed and stunned by it.
"There were Polish families from the (United) States who were there, all wearing t-shirts with the names of their Polish Pahiatua relatives on them."
Bale went there because he had interviewed one of the "children", 92-year-old Mike Markowski, and wanted to meet him in person.
Markowski had an "absolutely photographic recollection of this absolutely extraordinary life," he says.
Now a Queensland resident, seven of Markowski's 10 children came with him to New Zealand for the reunion, some hearing his full story for the first time.
Listen to the podcast for a rundown of this little-known slice of history…