Constructing the camp

Jock Aplin of Dannevirke recalls working on the site of the Polish Children's Camp in Pahiatua in 1942. Before the Polish children arrived, he was employed as a labourer by Gillespies, builders of Dannevirke, who worked for AV Swanson contractors of Wellington. Many subcontractors were local people who were involved in turning Pahiatua Racecourse into an internment camp for "foreign nationals".

The land at the time was very wet. With all the transport carting in the timber, cement and polite (a type of weatherboard), it was a quagmire. Tractors

The Pahiatua Polish Jubilee Committee on the porch of the Pahiatua Museum, 17 September 1994. The museum features many photos of the Polish community and the scale model of the camp.
Standing: (l-r) Józef Zawada, Helena Wypych (Chwieduk), Dorothy Ropiha, Elaine Perry, Marge Bentley, Jean Eddie, Don Selby, Alistair MacDougall, John Burns
Sitting: (l-r) Eugeniusz Szadkowski, Piotr Przychodźko

page 297were required to pull out the trucks, which became stuck in the muddy conditions. Jock said that the labourers were housed under the grandstand so as to live on the job and the Ross family catered for the employees under the second grandstand. In 1942-43, he entered the army, only to return when the "internees" were removed from the camp. After their removal, the army helped to prepare the camp for the Polish children's arrival. The children and adults occupied the camp until 1949.

In 1950, it provided a temporary home for boatloads of displaced persons from war-torn Europe. Today, the land has returned to pasture and there is no sign of what used to be the camp. Only the Polish children's memorial marks the area where the camp was located.