Mayor's Speech - 65th Anniversary of Arrival of Polish Children in Wellington

Your Excellencies, Archbishop, Minister, Leader of the Opposition, former children of Pahiatua, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen. Witajcie. Welcome.

It is a great honour to welcome you today on behalf of the council and people of Wellington, particularly those of you who have travelled so far to be with us.

The journey to Wellington is rather more direct and less dangerous in 2009 than it was 65 years ago. But I hope you have found your welcome here to be as warm, if a little less daunting, than the children did in 1944.

The arrival of those Polish children at Queens Wharf, just across the water from here, was a landmark event for this country and for the children themselves.

People have always come to these islands to seek a better life. But rarely can the need have been as pressing as it was for those children, buffeted by the monstrous forces shaking the world at the time.

They had seen their ancient nation ripped apart by the wolves of Fascism and Communism. They had witnessed scenes of cruelty which I doubt have ever left them.

They were exiled to the cold of northern Russia, then the heat of Persia. Even when they knew there was refuge in New Zealand, they had to face the dangers of the wartime Pacific.

Their courage did not end when they got off the ship in Wellington. They needed courage to face their disappointment at the crushing of their dreams of being able to return to Poland after the war.

And they needed the everyday courage of refugees building a life in a strange country so far from home.

The presence here today of many of those refugees - along with representatives of the generations who have followed them - are a testament to their success.

Their experience has been echoed many times since as migrants and refugees have continued to seek a better life in New Zealand.

We do not ask them to leave their cultures in the arrivals hall or at the dockside. In Wellington we celebrate the many cultures which make this such a diverse and exciting place to live.

We welcome the work of groups like the Polish Association which show that being a New Zealander does not mean you have to abandon your cultural identity.

A report of the 25th anniversary of the children's arrival, in 1969, put it like this: "It brought an awareness that it is possible to have unconflicting simultaneous love and loyalty to two countries: the one where one is born, and the other where one grows up and finds fulfillment."

The people who came here in 1944 were stunned by the kindness which greeted them in New Zealand and have never forgotten it.

As a Kiwi I am very proud of the welcome they received, from the Prime Minister who met them off the ship, to the kids who waved at the train, to the ladies who put the flowers on the tables at the camp.

The kindness has been repaid many times in the contribution those children, their children and grandchildren have made and continue to make to this country.

And we as a nation - in 1944 isolated by distance and not used to receiving foreign guests by the hundred - learned that we could be neighbours to people from half a world away, and that brought the world a little bit closer.

The world is very different today, but the truth of that lesson remains undimmed.

Thank you and congratulations to the Polish Children's 65th Reunion Committee and all others involved in the organisation of today's events, and thank you for letting me share them with you.

Dzienkuje. Thank you.

The speech delivered may vary from this text.

Department Details:
Mayor's Office