Polish repatriates from Manchuria in Elbląg

The most important Polish concentration in the Far East between 1897 and 1949 was Manchuria and its major administrative city of Harbin. The inflow of Poles into Manchuria was mainly for economic reasons and related to the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Apart from railway workers this depopulated Chinese region attracted Polish entrepreneurs, craftsmen, descendants of the Polish prisoners sent into the Tsarist Russia, and after the Bolshevik Revolution also Polish officers and soldiers who fought in the Tsarist Army. The activity of the Polish diaspora of several thousand people was particularly evident in the social and cultural areas. The multi-national Harbin hosted Polish schools, churches and associations. After the Japanese army conquered Manchuria first Polish émigrés began returning to their homeland. The situation in the civil war China and the new reality divided the Poles and brought more supporters on to the idea of come back home, advocated by among others Kazimierz Krąkowski.

In the end, most Poles repatriated from Manchuria only in July 1949. In line with the inter-state agreements and after a month-long journey in two railway carriages through the Soviet Union they made it to the assembly point in Biała Podlaska. From there they were sent on to urban locations in the northern and western parts of Poland which offered more superior living and working conditions. Besides Szczecin and Wrocław, Elbląg was a major settlement place for the repatriates from Manchuria. In total, 106 people arrived, either in groups or individually, to live here. They included a number of specialists whose professional skills, qualifications and specific protection guaranteed by the authorities provided them with a stable social environment. The age structure of the repatriates constituted another significant element; most of them - Polish citizens born in Manchuria – were below 30. The majority of the others were born in the eastern territories of pre-war Poland (who became republics of the Soviet Union) and in areas Russian areas lying beyond the Lake Baikal. There were also a few mixed, Polish – Russian marriages. Although they received financial and in-kind state aid, they had to face the problems relating to the adaptation process in a new country. One of the most characteristic feature of the Polish people from Manchuria living in Poland in the nineteen fifties was their great mobility. Elblag was just a transitory town for many who then moved on to other locations in the country. Between 1950 and 1958 a few more hundreds of Poles were transferred  from China (by sea), among whom more than a dozen settled down in Elbląg. Among the most prominent representatives of the repatriates from Harbin who came to live in Elbląg in 1949 were Bronisław Stefanowicz, entrepreneur and social and political activist, and Włodzimierz Wowczuk, political commentator and journalist.

A. Wełniak