The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum is a registered charity, museum and archive at Prince’s Gate in London in the United Kingdom. The Institute is named after Władysław Sikorski, a Polish general who fought in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919 to 1921 and later became the Prime Minister of the Free Polish government in exile in London from September 1939 down to his death in the summer of 1943. The Institute and Museum, as both its location in London and the decision to name it after Sikorski would suggest, is dedicated to the history of the Free Polish during the Second World War and other Polish political exile movements abroad since the eighteenth century. More broadly it is a resource center for the history of the Polish diaspora, particularly within Europe. As such, it is an excellent resource for Polish genealogical studies.[1]
History of Polish political exiles
The Polish Institute is intimately connected with the history of Polish political exiles. Poland is a country with a long history of political oppression that has driven large numbers of Poles abroad fleeing persecution in their homeland and often seeking to drum up support for their cause in Britain and other countries. The first major wave of political exiles was created in the second half of the eighteenth century when the Partitions of Poland brought the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to an end. As Prussia, Russia and Austria swallowed up their homeland between the 1770s and the mid-1790s, some Poles left Eastern Europe.[2] London was very often their destination of choice, especially so once it became a haven for political exiles of all stripes from across Europe following the French Revolution of 1789. Similarly, the crushing of the Greater Poland Uprising in 1848 in Prussian Poland as part of the wider 1848 rebellions that swept Europe that year led to a wave of Polish political refuges taking ship for either Britain or the United States.[3]
As important as these earlier instances are, the history of Polish political exiles primarily lies in the twentieth century. Some Poles left their region during the First World War as it was torn by war between the German and Russian empires, though they reclaimed their statehood after a century and a quarter of subjugation since the Partitions with the Polish-Soviet War of 1919 to 1921.[4] This was easily eclipsed, though, by the flight of 150,000 or so Poles from Poland to Britain in 1939 and 1940 as Nazi Germany occupied Poland.[5] The Polish government in exile played a major role in the Second World War, with the Free Polish contributing forces to many military campaigns, drumming up support for US entry into the war amongst the large Polish American community and warning the Allied nations about the commencement of the Holocaust or Shoah on the continent through the publication of a book entitled The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland in 1942.[6]
Unfortunately the end of the Second World War only brought about a new kind of political oppression in Poland as the Soviet Union moved into the country in 1944 and established a communist puppet regime there. It would remain part of the Soviet bloc through the Warsaw Pact down to the end of the Cold War. As this occurred, over 150,000 Poles were naturalized by the British government and remained to live in United Kingdom, while a Polish community of political exiles continued to try to influence the British government on Polish policy between the late 1940s and the late 1980s. This history of political exile is at the core of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London.[7]
The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum
The Polish Institute was established on the 15th of November 1945 in awareness that as the Second World War came to an end Poland was swapping one type of political oppression (the Nazis) for another (the Soviets). Its goal was to promote the legacy of the Free Polish during the war and to continue to advocate for Poland within the United Kingdom. A museum was soon developed and this was named after Władysław Sikorski, who had been the Prime Minister of Free Poland in the UK from the commencement of the war in September 1939 down to his death in the summer of 1943. One of the main foundation collections of the archive and museum were the extensive papers of Sikorski, donated by his widow, Helena.[8]
Archival material at the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum
The Institute and Museum holds a wide range of records pertaining to the Polish exile community in London, principally during the Second World War and the era of the Cold War, though its remit was soon extended after its foundation to cover the wider history of the Polish diaspora. The records here are a very valuable resource for anyone investigating a family member or ancestor who fought for the Free Polish during the Second World War, with extensive records of regimental records such as those which fought in France in 1944 after the D-Day landings. There is also a large array of copies of related records, such as archival documents concerning the Warsaw Uprising in Poland itself in 1944. More broadly, the Institute is a port of call for acquiring information on anyone who was a Polish political exile in modern times, with a particular focus on military records and political documents.[9]
Explore more about the Polish diaspora
- Poland, Military Personnel records collection on MyHeritage
- Russians immigrating to the United States records collection on MyHeritage
- Using MyHeritage to research Polish family history and to find living relatives in Poland at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Polish Communities – Migration and Resettlement at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
References
- ↑ https://pism.org.uk/
- ↑ https://www.thecollector.com/partitions-of-poland-and-lithuania/
- ↑ Abraham G. Duker, ‘The Polish Political Émigrés and the Jews in 1848’, in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 24 (1955), pp. 69–102.
- ↑ https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2017/01/world-war-i-restoring-poland/
- ↑ https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/the-displacement-of-poles-and-their-subsequent-resettlement-in-the-united-kingdom-1939-1949/
- ↑ https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-mass-extermination-of-jews-in-german-occupied-poland
- ↑ https://www.fmreview.org/resettlement/blaszczyk
- ↑ https://pism.org.uk/history/
- ↑ https://pism.org.uk/online-document-catalogue/