Meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office of the Council of Ministers with a Kenyan-Ugandan delegation representing cultural and media institutions of both East African countries

At the invitation of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers, representatives of the Centre for Documentation of Deportations, Expulsions and Resettlements of the Pedagogical University of Krakow took part in a meeting with a Kenyan-Ugandan delegation representing cultural and media institutions from both East African countries. Representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office for the Protection of Memorial Sites and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage took part in the talks. They debated the appropriate preservation of the Polish national heritage in these countries, which are the Polish necropolises and churches left over from the former settlements which were inhabited in the 1940s and 1950s by Polish citizens rescued from Soviet lagers, prisons and settlements. A preliminary scenario of joint activities for the future (exhibitions, educational films, conferences, publications) was also worked out, promoting knowledge of the history of Polish Sybiraks in East and Southern Africa. Between 1942 and 1952, approximately 20,000 Polish citizens lived in 22 refugee settlements in what are now Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Since 2009, documentation and restoration work on these sites has been carried out by staff and students of the Pedagogical University of Krakow. The last of the expeditions took place to Masindi in November 2022. Another, to Kondoa and Tengeru in Tanzania, is planned for this year. The work is funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

 

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