The plight of Poland, carved up by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in a secret pact between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, stirred many people to try to help, including, I was surprised to discover recently, my grandmother.
Lorna Bale (née McHardy), then 46, joined other Palmerston North women, led by Ann Jacques, to found the Polish Army League in December 1941. Their mission was to support Polish servicemen, knowing that most, if not all, had lost families – often their entire families, or were unable to find out if relatives and friends had survived.
Minutes from the founding meeting say Jacques “presented a scheme whereby Polish forces in the Middle East could be helped by the women of NZ”. They went on to recruit 8000 NZ members and to correspond with 10,000 servicemen, sending them parcels.
A call from Palmerston North’s Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science & Heritage collections manager Cindy Lilburn, who had tracked me down through a domino run of cousins, opened a window on my grandmother. Lorna had, to me, always struck a formal, formidable, almost Victorian chord, with what seemed like a 19th-century wardrobe. A Polish researcher wanted information on Lorna and Jacques and the Polish Army League, Lilburn said.
That sent me on a journey to do my own research on Lorna, her husband Richard Francis – my grandfather – who she divorced and the story of Poland and New Zealand.
The Polish Army League is a testament to the redoubtable Lorna, Ann Jacques and their colleagues, as well as women around New Zealand.
Grateful soldiers and PoWs sent back paintings, carvings, letters of thanks to the (mostly) women who wrote, knitted and sent care parcels. One Polish soldier carried his dead New Zealand colleague’s kit for two years to return it to his family through the league.
Among Lorna’s documents, found after her death in 1978, was a poem, probably by Ann Jacques, in which she writes of “eight leisurely ladies drinking tea” as they pack parcels for the “poor dear refugee”. Jacques and her husband William fostered three of the Pahiatua Polish children in 1945 and the women of the army league widened their efforts to include the Pahiatua kids.
Grandma kept a wooden dagger – probably a letter opener – with a Polish eagle on the handle and the inscription “A. Kobierski Żołnierz Polski ‒ przyjaciołom z Nowej Zelandii” (“A Polish soldier to the friends from New Zealand”). Adam Kobierski was a soldier in the 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division which fought at Tobruk and Monte Cassino. He survived the war and died in London in 1984.
To give a sense of her personality, I recall helping my then-elderly grandmother cross a busy road in Masterton, warning her to beware of the traffic. “They,” she declared, “will stop for me!”
Lorna’s eldest son, Devon Bale, my father, served in World War II with Poles in the Royal Air Force. Among his papers I found an envelope with stamps from the Polish government in exile, depicting the destruction of Warsaw, and plucky Polish soldiers, airmen and sailors.
And in Grandma’s papers were seals on her letters declaring: “Poland: First to Fight.”
