The Odyssey of the Anders Army, 1941-46 by Norman Davies

Join Professor Norman Davies as he explores the untold story of the Polish Second Corps of the Polish Armed Forces during the Second World War in a video lecture we produced for the Chelsea History Festival.
The Polish Second Corps, which fought under British command in the Italian Campaign of 1943-45, is best remembered for its heroic capture of the Abbey of Monte Cassino. But the details of its formation under General Anders in Russia and of its amazing feat of making its way to Italy via Iran, Iraq and Palestine, are less known.
Norman Davies recounts the remarkable odyssey of the 'Anders Army' and some of its more colourful members including the extraordinary women draiverki, the Jewish soldiers who joined the Zionist underground, and Wojciech the Bear.

[@Midas_kek]

My grandfather, a Pole who fought at Montecassino, Bologna and many others as he was a soldier of Anders. He was Polish but was given British citizenship and moved there after the war with his Italian wife whom he had met in the war after he helped feed her family. I’m very proud of him and being British myself I felt a connection to Poland. I emigrated and am now a polish citizen due to right of blood.

[@eve-marie6751]

Hi, please see my comment of Dec 26/22 above.

[@leeseaman6068]

Wonderful story,

[@megaduck7965]

Same story with my grandfather but I’ve stayed in England so far

[@jonpender]

My mother's side of the family was deported to Siberia from what is now western Ukraine. My uncle became a truckdriver in Anders' 2nd Corps and they escaped the USSR thanks to that. My mother spent her high school years in the city of Leon Mexico. Another uncle, too young for military service, spent the war in Palestine. My father, who was a resident of Silesia, was drafted into the German Armed Forces towards the end of the war. I thank Prof. Davies for memorializing these events. They all ended up in Chicago.

[@robertodulinski7129]

Well done and god bless you for preserving our history

[@michaelbochenski3841]

Fascinating. History telling at its finest. My father was part of “the Anders Army”.

[@AnnaKarkowskaVirtuoso]

Love and Respect!!

[@niloc962]

Hello there my grandfather was part of Anders 2nd polish corps after walking from captivety in siberia

[@ickyfrupp2751]

My grandfather , Kazimiers Olszewski was part of this story. He was wounded at Montecassino. I am always curious about this story .

[@kasiairys]

look -South African Sanctuary For Polish Refugees Aka South Africa Provides Sanctuary (1939) -Artwork by a Polish Survivor of Soviet Deportations to Siberia

[@wolfmaan]

My grandfather, Jozef Telega was also part of the story. He fought in Africa, Egypt, and Italy at Monte Cassino as a tank commander. My aunt (his sister) was sent to the children's slave camps in Africa.

[@eve-marie6751]

Hi, they were not "slave camps". They were orphan-refugee camps and they were supervised by Polish adults under the overall direction of the Polish-government-in-exile. My aunt, her mother, and the mother of one of my cousin's husband passed through those camps. The people who organized those camps later would organize sometimes quite massive Polish scouting camps all over the world and I passed through those with so many other Polish children and we wondered where the older generation learned to do something other parents could not do:- our parents and grandparents were very remarkable people!

[@bandit2048]

Both my mother and father were part of this history of the Polish nation - my mother deported to a gulag from what was then eastern Poland and my father taken to build roads in what is now Ukraine before ending up in a Soviet prison camp in Starobielsk. By many twists and turns they ended up both serving in Anders army and finally came to Britain where my sister and I were born. I have listened to many harrowing accounts of their history although as a small child obviously the worst was never talked about. So for me this is still the recent history of my parents without whom I would not be here. I am immensely proud of them and of the Polish people. I still consider Poland my true home and its people as my people.

[@eve-marie6751]

Hi, please see my comment of Dec 26/22 above.

[@AnnaKarkowskaVirtuoso]

Love and Respect!

[@bialapodlaska1000]

A compelling, factual account painstakingly written by the world’s leading historian on Poland. Norman Davies’s book “Trail of Hope” is a must-read.

[@Manco65]

My Great Uncle and namesake Edward Bernadzikowski was in it as well. I'd love to connect with any of his descendants living in either Great Britain or Poland, my distant relatives.

[@brianoidperson]

Have read almost everything in find about Ander's army. Here is all put together beautifully. Hollywood has avoided this part of the war,..

[@jimmyjetski3409]

Typical Hollywood, they could not alter anything to suit their narrative. My paternal grandad was part of Anders army, my dad was with them until they reached Palestine where he joined the RAF, they had been in Siberia. grandad went onto Montecassino.

[@greggrzywacz6701]

It’s hard to tell the story of Ander’s Army without the context of how the allies sold out Poland at the end of the war (the “good guys” don’t look to good when that’s told). There’s also the context of England’s policy of appeasement of Stalin, both during and after the war. The Russian camps are as great an atrocity as the German camps, but are seldom brought to light in feature films or history taught in grade school in the US.

[@eve-marie6751]

@@greggrzywacz6701 Hi, please see my comment of Dec 26/22 above.

[@eve-marie6751]

@@jimmyjetski3409 Hi, please see my comment of Dec 26/22 above.

[@eve-marie6751]

Hi, please see my comment of Dec 26/22 above.

[@AnnaKarkowskaVirtuoso]

Dear Sir, Thank you so much for sharing true Polish history ! You are a National Polish Treasure. Because of Stalin politics Polish true history was for years forbidden and what Stalin let Polish kids learn at school was distorted. I am so shaken by lies of after all born in Polish town ( today Bialorus) Israeli Prime Minister Menahim Begin. Maybe he was silent admirer of Stalin for his own political reasons. But huge problem with such lies coming from known figures like Menahim Begin is that people today will think it was true . Thank you once more!!!!

[@eve-marie6751]

My uncle (and my father's older brother), Bolesław Chamot, was a field medic at Monte Cassino and he passed away in November 2019 aged 95 and he was one of the last surviving Polish veterans of Monte Cassino:- what can I say?:- it's so sad what happened to them all, Pan Chamot was always our "Rock of Gibraltar". Awej Polonia, kraj radosny! Awej, bohatery jej, w niebie urodzone Który bronily i krwawily za wolność jej Który bronily i krwawily za wolność jej A gdy burza wojny zniknęło Dali nam pokój który zdobył ich męstwo Niech umiłujemy naszą niezależność Ale zawsze zapamiętajcie cenę Zawsze wdzięczny za nagrodę, Pozwól jej ołtarzu dotrzeć do nieba Bądźmy jędrna i zjednoczeni, Rajdy okrągłe naszej wolności I w naszej Wspólnotnej pokrewieństwa dołączona Pokój i bezpieczeństwo dowiemy.

[@ABC-ln9oi]

Mój teść walczył w Armii Andersa, pan Lucjan Staruszkiewicz 🌷

[@eve-marie6751]

Please check out pg 400 in the English version:- that very determined young lad standing in the turret of a Sherman M4 under Polish colors is my late father, Henryk Chamot, radioman and gunloader, aged 16 (and yes he lied about his age to join along with so many others). I think that picture was a publicity picture because he was much too young to be in the tank-commander's position plus he is wearing his nice clean dress uniform instead of the grungy dusty overalls tankers actually wore on the job. He was quite good-looking (along with my mother and it all rubbed off on me!) plus he always had that very determined look of "Polska Odradzająca!" so they apparently chose him to be a "poster boy". I suspect the 20-something tank commander was down below and he and my father's buddies were teasing him to try to make him smile and he was "itching" to tell them to "f-o!". I later met them as a baby and toddler and grew up around them and they were a very rowdy lot and they frightened me a bit (except for Pan Broś, a very nice proper Polish gentleman) but I really miss them now:- they were my regimental "uncles" in that regimental "family", a very big and close family but always deeply sad with a lot of emotional pain under the surface which we children all sensed but could never understand.

[@sebastianrutkowski7316]

*chwała bohaterom!!*

[@ABC-ln9oi]

🙏🕯🌷🇵🇱♥️

[@mattluszczak8095]

Ill go check the page out bud!

[@SK-qc6fb]

How is it not generally known that over 50,000 "German" Soldiers deserted and joined he allies??? Fascinating history!

[@DrM123]

Thank you for this nicely structured presentation that helped with some of the details of a story that I have been aware of through my family, but have not yet quite nailed down. I am working on it!

[@eve-marie6751]

Hi, please see my comment of Dec 26/22 above.

[@niloc962]

My grandfather's name was Staisaw Waskiewicz

[@lotuselise4432]

My Mother was in Persia then Tengeru then in 1944 she was in the PAF/RAF in the UK until 1948.

[@eve-marie6751]

Hi, please see my comment of Dec 26/22 above.

[@heniakonas9439]

Victory in Tobruk, where the Poles replaced Australians, was greatly aided by the invention of the mine detector by a major in the Polish army. In spite of all the fighting, through the war when it came to the 1945 victory parade in London, they were not invited. Attlee did not want to hurt Stalin`s feelings.

[@andysinthegarden]

Great video. Now I know how my mother made it out of a Siberian gulag and into the Middle East. One slight correction in the English author's story of the orphans who arrived in California needs to be made. The children were probably sent to Santa Rosa in the US state of New Mexico and not the country Mexico. I could not find Santa Rosa, Mexico.

[@davebrusa3997]

Hi Andy, Mr. Davies is perfectly correct when he describes the Santa Rosa camp as being in the country of Mexico. My late Dad, Uncle, and Grandmother all went through this experience. There should be some info on the Santa Rosa camp on the Kresy-Siberia website. Kind regards.

[@kasiairys]

-South African Sanctuary For Polish Refugees Aka South Africa Provides Sanctuary (1939) -Artwork by a Polish Survivor of Soviet Deportations to Siberia

[@conhallows]

I wonder what became of the Poles left behind when General Anders left

[@ronaldostrowski4014]

They joined the First and Second Polish Armies which fought alongside the Red Army all the way to Berlin and Dresden. kzbin.info/www/bejne/q3qYhJKModufgNE

[@anastazjaQ]

Many returned to backbreaking work in Gulag and did not survive the repatriation in the 1950s. Some of them joined the Berling's Army (Polish General who went on communist side). The army was under soviet and "Polish" communists' command) and was "liberating" Poland and Berlin. The Berling's Army was the ground for new communist Polish Peoples Army (with soviet command).

[@eve-marie6751]

Yes, there are many thousands of us still looking for kinfolk left behind. I'm still trying to find the fate of my grandmother, a grandaunt, and an uncle but those heartless two-legged cockroaches of the Third Republic will not help us an iota and like to sneer at us instead. They completely ignored the Canadian Red Cross and my formal application for a search and their consular staff in Toronto just sneered their contempt at me.

[@Alex-lg6nz]

​@@anastazjaQ You must really hate Polish people, based on you deliberate phrasing. On the other hand, I know how you feel. So many Soviet lives wasted on saving ungrateful Europeans from extermination - terrible tragedy.

[@user-nz1mu2ql6w]

This is one portion of the "Polish Odyssey" and I thank Professor Davies for telling it. Another is the tale of "Sikorsk's Tourists", those who escaped through the last stand, crossing the Hungarian and Romanian border to make their way to France and ultimately, were evacuated from France to Britain. Many of whom would become the Polish wing of the RAF during the remainder of the War. My father was one. Since he was a photographer, I have a handful of images from that time. His fiance, who was living in Lwow/Lviv at the time, was likely deported to Siberia. He newer learned what became of her thereafter. This story suggests some options, if she managed to survive.

[@user-jm1oz3fk4v]

My grandfather Sokol Semyon was a soldier in Anders' army. after the war he lived in London.

[@kasiairys]

wazny dokument- 17 wrzesnia Portret jednego dnia.

[@AnnaKarkowskaVirtuoso]

There was among other wonderful Poles in Anders Army Lucjan Krolikowski When I met him he was already very old, very quite and a Franciscan friar whom happy to see two Poles in Connecticut after our concert told me and my sister an extraordinary, moving to tears story of his life., 150 Polish children-orphants who lost their parents in Siberian Gulag, and a Polish Communists after WWII who tried to intercept them. He wrote about it in,, A Franciscan Odyssey.'' There was a camp in Jaworzno where Polish Communists on Stalin's order were imprisoning Polish children -teenage AK members tougether with NAZIS in 1945 so Poles in Jaworzno , civilians thought that they were Nazis!!! One day those AK to sing Rota to total surprise of throwing stones Poles behind camp Jaworzno fence.

[@izz13i]

Hi Is there anyone, who would have any memory of the circus group that was travelling with the Andre's Army? My grandfather was in it Just looking for any information.

[@izz13i]

Apologies for typo.. ANDERS....

[@anastazjaQ]

You have to check out info in Sikorski Institute.

[@MsMiklosa]

👍

[@richardchlebos5023]

What was the path of the American Ship "Hermitage" ?

[@krukpolny8505]

General Anders and General Patton. You Tube.

[@krukpolny8505]

Monte Cassino Poland 1944. You Tube.

[@sashad5270]

Kuzma mostockii 1920

[@eve-marie6751]

Is there an organization for Polish "children of the regiment"?:- ie for the children, grandchildren, etc of the free Polish forces of the West in WW2? Also, how can I trace my grandmother, my grandaunt, and uncle who were left behind stranded on "Kolkhoz Stalin" in North Tadzhikistan in 1942? I tried going through the Canadian Red Cross with an English application plus a Polish translation but the Polish Red Cross was so rude and wretched that they never acknowledged any inquiries from a sister RC organization and likewise I tried to contact the Polish consul in Toronto and even the Polish ambassador in Ottawa but likewise those wretched Polish-speaking Sovietized fascist bumpkins could not be bothered answering. We are the true "Versailles Poles" and they are the fake "Potsdam Poles" and they always sneer their contempt at us because of that. I know my ancestors have all died by now but perhaps they had more children and we have missing cousins over there:- they made such dreadful sacrifices and endured such terrible hardships for grandchildren yet unborn so that we would inherit their Commonwealthist traditions and never know the yoke and stain of Soviet Communism and the stench of sanctimonious Polak-Katolik fascism and so we will always be the better people and we will never rest until we find them, we owe them at least that much!!!

[@kasiairys]

look ,, Tulacze dzieci,,

[@krukpolny8505]

Generał Anders Poland and General Patton USA. You Tube.

[@eve-marie6751]

Hi, what some of you call "Poland" is not really "our" Poland. Our Poland, the true Poland, was the Second Republic of Poland as recognized and defined by the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 and subsequent decisions by the League of Nations following the Peace of Riga in 1923. Our parents remained loyal to the Polish government-in-exile following WW2 and were forced into exile for it and we are thus the only surviving citizens of the Second Republic of Poland and basically we are thus "Versailles Poles". "Their" Poland or today's "mainland Poland" was actually created by the Potsdam Agreement of 1945 which partitioned our Poland and seized some German territory to create a new "Frankenstein state", ie Soviet Poland, an informal SSR of the USSR, which became the Polish People's Republic in 1953 and then the Third Republic of Poland in 1991. The Potsdam Agreement also created a new Polish "nation", the "Potsdam Poles" since everyone who did not accept the Potsdam Agreement emigrated by 1953. The Versailles Poles and the Potsdam Poles are two very different ethnic "nations" with us preserving pre-WW2 Polish culture which was based on the traditions of cosmopolitan "Commonwealthism" while they talk and act like Polish-speaking Sovietized bumpkins who subscribe to a culture of fascistic nationalism and who like to scream and shriek and sneer at us and also insult us a lot. Their main social skills seem to comprise lying, cheating, and stealing and their preferred economic activities seem to comprise prostitution, fraud, and theft and apparently these are the three main industries of mainland Poland which is why their country is always so poor. They also misappropriated our old flag, our royal white eagle, and our old national anthem:- more suitable symbols for them would be a starling (a dirty messy nasty bird) and a flag of poopy brown to symbolize their intense propensity for converting gold and silver into "poop" and a chorus of belching and farting because every mainland Polish male who reaches the age of 16 believes he has a God-given right to eat a kilo of sausages and drink a gallon of beer every day for the rest of his life and fart his way through life. They worry about Putin invading Poland but although he is a ruthless, brutal psychopath he is too smart to invade Poland:- the last thing he needs is 38+ million Poles sticking their hand out every day to him and demanding another "pięćdziesiątka" for gracing his drab life with their brilliant and inimitable presence. Btw, the Potsdam Agreement was grossly illegal in respect of its provisions for liquidating our Poland because it grossly violated the acquis communautaire of the United Nations which took effect on June 26, 1945 while the Potsdam Agreement took effect a month later on August 1, 1945, while their brain-dead Polish-Communist SSR joined the the UN only on October 15, 1945. Our Poland actually was an original signatory of the Declaration by United Nations on January 2, 1942 and we also introduced the first major resolution of the new United Nations in December of 1942 to condemn the policy of genocidal mass-murder of Jews and others by Nazi Germany. We are thus entitled to our own seat at the UN and that seat remains vacant to this day:- the seat held by the Third Republic of Poland is a new seat created for them on October 15, 1945 since they are merely a continuation state of Soviet Poland and not a continuation state of our Second Republic of Poland. Although we have always steadfastly repudiated the Potsdam Agreement and suffered greatly for that, the mainland Poles happily embraced the Potsdam Agreement and especially enthusiastically seized the property of mass-murdered Jewish Poles and thus became accessories to the Holocaust post factum. Btw, we are still technically at war with Germany and its former Axis allies since we were prevented from joining the post-WW2 peace process. Prawdziwa Polska jeszcze nie zginęła!

[@d.avraba889]

This person has systematically covered up the seriuos antisemitism that was rampant in this army. In the Soviet Union all kinds of things were done to keep Polish Jews out-- and Prof. Davies simply denies this. As as son of a Polish Jewish Anders soldier-- who mixed with the Polish Jewish x serviceman I know this to be false or perhaps worse- whatever it is-- hius portrayal presents Poles in a rosier picture-- and since he has received honours from Poland-- this presentation is suspect. Not only did thousands of Polish Jews desert the Andedrs army in Palestine, hundreds desserted later in Scotland-England- because of antisemitism-- all duly recorded and discussed even in the UK parliament. These deserters were not pun ished-- but taken on into the British army. Prof. Davies doesn't say anything about this- maybe he doesn't know-- or maybe he doesn't want others to know-- as it unravels his false picture.

[@mareksicinski3726]

Many were allowed to leave by their commanders out of an understanding for their Zionist sympathies, not to save themselves from antismetiism I don’t think that makes it suspect, if anything the imputation goes the other way around

[@eve-marie6751]

This is not true:- just read the book and study the history. It was the Soviets who insisted on restricting the emigration to ethnic "Poles" so the Polish Army simply changed the names of thousands of non-Polish soldiers to Polonize them so the Soviets would allow them to leave. My family had its name changed and so did a certain "Menachem Begin" who thereafter rejoiced in the name "Mieczysław Begun" at least until he reached Palestine where his Polish commander granted him an indefinite leave. No Jewish-Polish soldiers actually "deserted" in Palestine:- they were merely granted indefinite leave and Polish search parties made a firm habit of overlooking any so-called Jewish "deserter" much to the chagrin of British authorities. Anders Army also brought over ~900 Jewish children, the so-called "Teheran Children" who were not actually orphans nor dependents of Polish soldiers:- they had to bribe the Soviets by giving them the supplies which the British had provided them via Murmansk and the British were not happy about this. As for the First Polish Corps in Scotland some of them were a bit less tolerant but anti-Semitism was not rampant there either and they also were quite hostile to ethnic Poles who were drafted into the Wehrmacht and subsequently deserted to the Allied side and later joined the British army. If "thousands" of Jewish-Polish soldiers "deserted" in Palestine then you can't really logically say that the Anders command had excluded them in the first place because how else would they get to Palestine? You seem to be a bit mentally disordered.

[@heniakonas9439]

Anders insisted that Polish Jews were Polish citizens and should be allowed to leave Russia with the rest of the Poles. Stalin did not want them release them. This is how Begin ( Mieczyslaw Biegun) together with countless other Jews, was able to leave the Gulags, they had been sentenced to, for Persia and Palestine. .True a lot of them deserted to later form a resistance initially against the British Mandate and then the Arabs and formed the core Israeli army. Let me stress without Anders NO Jew would have been allowed to leave the Soviet Union.

[@wladyslawbukowski]

The professor did not mention a word about the role of Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain. What a pity. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pqXMm4GZecahjNk

[@krukpolny8505]

Monte Cassino Poland 1944. You Tube.

[@krukpolny8505]

Generał Anders Poland and General Patton USA. You Tube.

[@krukpolny8505]

Monte Cassino Poland 1944. You Tube.

[@krukpolny8505]

Monte Cassino Poland 1944. You Tube.