Poland in WWII

[simonmark6]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

After the war though the Poles were generally treated like a second unwelcome class. Many Poles returned to Poland, not because they felt they had a bright future back home, nor any real ties to the land, but more from frustration that they simply weren't being given a fair go in Britain.
I can't say what percentage went back and how many stayed to suffer through the insults and general indifference though.

Interestingly enough, this wasn't the experience of my family or the ex-Polish community in my town. At the end of the war there were seventy Polish servicemen billeted in the village, my maternal grandfather was one of them. The local community insisted that the men that had helped defend their country had a home here and indeed they raised the money to bring over as many of the polish families as they could once it became clear that the Soviets weren't going to move out of Poland.

In fact, the local Catholic Church still employs at least one Polish speaking priest to serve the needs of the older members of the community. True, our village may be atypical, it certainly was in WW1 but not all Poles were treated as second class citizens.

[Rainbow Six]

Probably also worth mentioning the Polish Home Army, which fought against the Germans in occupied Poland, and was considered to be an official part of the Polish Armed Forces (and even acknowledged as such by the Germans after the 1944 Warsaw Rising). Several sources quote its strength as being somewhere around the 400,000 mark and credit it with tieing down several German Divisions.