Greeks in Poland - History

History

Greeks, particularly merchants and traders have been present in the Polish lands since the Middle Ages, funding a number of Orthodox churches throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However most of these immigrants eventually assimilated into the diverse groups that trace their heritage from this polity such as Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusans, and Ukrainians.

Most self-identified Greeks in Poland today trace their heritage to the large number of Greek citizens who fled as refugees from the Greek Civil War and were admitted into Poland. They consisted largely of former partisan units from the Macedonia region of Greece.

Most had been farmers before their flight from Greece. In total, from 1949 to 1951, 12,300 people from Greece came to Poland, of whom roughly one-fourth were children.

Most refugees arrived by sea through the port at Gdynia. The Polish government chose to settle them in the territories west of the Oder River near the border with East Germany, especially near Zgorzelec. About 200 were also sent to Krościenko in the southeast, near the Bieszczady Mountains in a formerly ethnic Ukrainian area. Initially, the refugees were celebrated as anti-capitalist heroes and given significant government assistance in building new lives and integrating in Poland. Initially, they found employment on farms, for which they were well suited because of their rural background; however, they later gravitated towards urban areas.

Some refugees chose to return to Greece early on. By 1957, still roughly 10,000 remained in Poland. However, suspicions later fell on them of being Titoist agents. A large number were deported to Bulgaria in 1961. After an 1985 agreement between the governments of Poland and Greece that enabled Greek refugees to receive retirement pensions at home, the number of Greeks in Poland has deteriorated further.

The refugees belonged to different ethnicities, including half reportedly of Macedonian ethnicity and speaking the Macedonian language. Two Polish experts in Minority Studies, Alfred F. Majewicz and Tomasz Wicherkiewicz, claim that the Polish government cooperated with Greek refugees in forcing Macedonian refugees to adopt Hellenic names, and prevented them from opening their own schools and organisations.

In 1950 the refugees from Greece were organized in the Community of Political Refugees from Greece (Polish: Gmina Demokratycznych Uchodźców Politycznych z Grecji), based in Zgorzelec. Two years later it moved to Wroclaw and was renamed in 1953 Nikos Beloyannis Union of Political Refugees from Greece (Polish: Związek Uchodźców Politycznych z Grecji im. Nikosa Belojanisa). After the fall of the dictatorship in Greece it changed its name into Association of Greeks in Poland (Polish: Towarzystwo Greków w Polsce), but in 1989, an internal schism led to the creation of the Association of Macedonians in Poland (Polish: Stowarzyszenie Macedończyków w Polsce).