Contribution of Poles to UK Society
Debate between Bob Stewart and Marcus JonesWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Lady for that recommendation. With the summer coming up, that may well be a good read. I will come in a moment to a very important point about the very situation that she mentions, but first I would like to continue on the theme of the battle of Britain.
Bramcote Airbase, which was on the edge of my constituency, Nuneaton, is where the RAF was responsible for training all the bomber aircrew for Polish forces in 1940, with four Polish bomber squadrons formed there. In fact, there was an air crash around that time; in the cemetery at Nuneaton, there are Polish airmen buried along with German and British airmen. We still commemorate those losses every year, to make sure that we remember the contribution that the Polish made at that time.
Bob Stewart
The reason why the Royal Air Force had so many Polish pilots was that they were extremely well trained and had fought for us in the battle of France before the battle of Britain. They were very well trained and we were very grateful that they were with us.
Mr Jones
I defer to my hon. Friend’s superior knowledge. He knows far more about such matters than I do. What he said is borne out by the fact that the Polish squadron was the highest scoring RAF Hurricane squadron in the battle of Britain.
It was not just in the air that the Poles excelled in the second world war. Girls and women today would do well to look at the contribution of one of the Special Operations Executive’s most daring operatives, Christine Granville, otherwise known by her Polish name, Krystyna Skarbek. She proved that being brave and fighting for one’s beliefs is not just a male preserve. On the battlefields, the Polish army, under British High Command, was instrumental at the battle of Monte Cassino, which was mentioned by colleagues, and at the battle of Arnhem, among many others. Perhaps most importantly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham and several other colleagues highlighted, we have Polish cryptographers to thank for cracking the early versions of the Enigma machine. That laid the foundations for subsequent British successes in deciphering German military signals, which proved a key factor in many allied successes during the war.
Poles were with us in our darkest hour, as they were with thousands of Polish Jews in theirs. More than 6,000 risked their lives to save Jews from the horrors of the holocaust. Poles constitute the largest national group within the “Righteous Among the Nations”, an honour bestowed on recipients by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the holocaust. Considering the harsh punishment that threatened rescuers, it is an extremely impressive number.
To ensure that the murder of millions of Polish Jews is never forgotten, the Department for Communities and Local Government is working with From the Depths to preserve the memory of the holocaust and give a name to those who were murdered, particularly those, including many Poles, who were placed in unmarked graves. That will offer some level of closure to the remaining holocaust survivors—including in Polish communities in this country—who have never known their loved ones’ last resting place. There are an estimated 10,000 sites of mass murder in eastern Europe, with only around 30 commemorated in the past three years. The project we have undertaken will rectify that.
Along with many others in this House and throughout the country, I reacted in absolute horror to the spike in incidents of hate crime following the EU referendum. My colleagues Baroness Williams, the then communities Minister, and Lord Ahmad, the then Minister for Countering Extremism, saw at first hand the effects of such mindless acts when they visited the Polish Social and Cultural Association—POSK—which my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham mentioned earlier in the debate. They met the Polish ambassador, His Excellency Witold Sobków, who I am really pleased to see in the Public Gallery.
I want to make it absolutely clear that we will not tolerate those few individuals who target people because they are different. Our police forces are on alert and have encouraged people who have experienced hate crime to report it to the police. We have zero tolerance for all forms of hate crimes, whichever community they are perpetrated against. Just as Polish men and women stood by us during the second world war, we will stand by those who have come more recently and who have contributed to our national life.
Our communities must be open, tolerant and welcoming. I am pleased to say that my Department is working with Near Neighbours to fund projects that promote integration and support social action—projects like the one in Birmingham run by the Polish Expats Association, which is holding a series of events to promote Polish music and culture, along with that of other communities. The project will also hold fundraising events to help the homeless community in Birmingham. I am pleased that, in his capacity as chair of the all-party group on Poland, my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham will meet my departmental colleague, Lord Bourne, to discuss how we can continue to counter hate crime and promote integration in communities throughout the country.
Today, there are thousands upon thousands of Polish citizens and people of Polish origin making a difference to the UK. My hon. Friend and others have highlighted their vital contribution. That is nowhere more true than in the NHS, where, according to the figures we have from the Department of Health, more than 6,700 Poles work.