On 31 October 1944, 733 Polish refugee children and 105 adult caregivers sailed into Wellington Harbour on the USS General Randall. On 1 November, they settled in the Polish Children’s Camp in Pahiatua.
They had been invited by Prime Minister Peter Fraser, for the remainder of World War II. They had lost their homes and family members following the 1939 German invasion of Poland, the occupation of Eastern Poland by the USSR and subsequent deportations of 1,700,000 Polish people to the USSR.
The children were due to return home after the war however post-war circumstances prevented this from happening, many accepted the Government’s offer to remain in New Zealand.
They became self-sufficient, hard-working loyal citizens.
That was when NZ had a heart. It was an egalitarian society with principles. A time when every resident and citizen were valued for WHO they were, not WHAT they were!
when we were giants..
It is distressing how uncommon, common decency in the Government of New Zealand is today.
That was when NZ was awash with export earned Farmer money.
One might be forgiven for asking; where’s that money now then ?
Nothing’s changed after all. People still need to eat, we need to trade our goods for the goods of others and we’re damned good at what we make off the land.
So, show me the money?
Who has our money?
Where is that money?
What happened to that money?
How did all that money disappear ?
Did Holyoak know ?
Did muldoon know when he got off that plane from Switzerland?
Does Michael Fay know?
Does David Richwhite know?
Does Alan Gibbs know?
Does Ron Brierly know?
Does the BNZ know?
Does City Bank know?
Do the many generations of swine know?
What does this have to do with refugees?
They cost money of course.
Is that why jonky baulked at bringing them in?
Best not rile the masses aye jonky?
They might start asking uncomfortable questions and expect to get more than lies , deceit , subterfuge and a babble of logical fallacies all capped off with a dismissive shrug.
If it happened now?
“Send ’em back! They’re all bloody Catholics and foriegners!”
If it happened now?
“We’ve done the costs and we simply can’t afford it.”
@ J S Bark – that’s what FJK is saying now, in a roundabout way of course, something about refugees putting pressure on NZ! Wonder if someone said that about his refugee mother all those years ago!
But hey, who needs refugees, when we’ve got a $26m flag referendum to concern ourselves with?
If it happened now?
“We’ve arranged for them to be interned in Fiji until we can process them. We don’t know if any are terrorists…”
If it happened now?
“We simply won’t accept any.”
“We’ll have to do the research first.”
“We’re going to accept six now and the rest over the next ten years…”
If it happened now?
“We cannot endorse people smugglers.”
I’m not a racist, but…
We’re looking to review our policy on refugee intake in a two-step process:
1. Adopt a blondes-only policy as we know that they have more fun and that’s what gentlemen prefer
2. Review the numbers to taking on 1% of the worldwide demand for blonde refugees, which will be a generous and ambitious figure for such a small country
If it happened now?
“We only have space for 15 at Mangere.”
If it happened now?
“Well we’re not gonna be able to have much of an impact on those vast numbers…”
If the refugees knew what our pm was like ,they probably wouldn’t want to come anyway,they might as well go to America.
“They sailed away for a year and a day,
To the land where the cabbage tree grows…”
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