Coming soon, India's own Schindler's List

It was the 1940s; Europe was plunged in war and Poland, caught between the Germans and the Russians, was in the eye of the storm. Children, especially those who had been orphaned or lost their parents in the melee, were badly affected and the Polish government-in-exile appealed to the international community for help. Among the first to respond was the maharaja, or Jam Saheb of Nawanagar, Digvijaysinhji Rahjitsinji Jadeja, who agreed to welcome 1,000 Polish children into his care.

The children arrived in 1942, travelling with the Red Cross across the Hindu Kush into India, and were put up by the Jam Saheb at a camp that he built next to his summer palace in Balachadi, around 25km from his capital Jamnagar. It was a home away from home with the Jam Saheb reportedly telling his charges, “Don’t consider yourself orphans. You are Nawanagaris and I am Bapu, the father of all Nawanagaris, including yourself.”

This bit of history, forgotten mostly in India, but held dearly to their hearts by the “Polish Survivors”, as they called themselves, has now been recorded in a new documentary called “A Little Poland in India”.

A joint production of Doordarshan, the Gujarat government, and Poland’s national broadcaster TVP, the film will be telecast on DD National this weekend. The documentary tells the story through the testimonies of five men and women who lived at the Balachadi camp for four years until 1946, when it was disbanded. Principal of these is Wieslaw Stypula, who was only seven when he came to India and 13 when he left, but still speaks of India as his “adopted homeland”. Stypula was in Delhi for the documentary’s premiere.

Interestingly, the Jam Saheb not only provided for board and care of his Polish guests, he even made sure that they did not loose touch with their own culture. He saw to it that they were schooled in their own tongue and wore local attire.