Problems

The Sisters' plan was that the Polish working and school girls, and later the youngest girls from the camp, would stay in the hostel and be brought up in a Polish, Catholic atmosphere. When they no longer needed the hostel, it would be used as a home for new Polish migrants seeking shelter, children of working mothers and older people needing constant care.

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However, the Curia had different plans. Soon after the Sisters moved in, Father Kavanagh informed Sister Alexandrowicz that the Curia wished that only working girls live in the hostel. Moreover, half of them would be Polish and half New Zealand. The younger girls were to be placed with New Zealand families. That information was a blow to the Sisters and the Polish people in Wellington. If this new plan eventuated, the most vulnerable group of the Polish orphans would be placed in the hands of strangers, no matter how loving.

"I was in a boarding school in Dunedin at that time and I remember how frightened I was that 'they' would abandon me somewhere among strangers and not let me go back to my friends," says Stefania Sondej (Manterys).

If this new plan was put into effect, Sister Alexandrowicz foresaw many problems – no Polish, Catholic atmosphere, probably little cooperation of New Zealand girls with Polish nuns, mixed races and different needs, but most of all the youngest Polish orphans would be dispersed among strangers. The Sisters were not against mixed races (they later cared for young children of different races and nationalities) but they wanted to attend first to the special needs of the Polish orphans. "Only tolerance and compassion could heal the scars" in those children, as Father Michael O'Meeghan wrote in Steadfast in Hope.

No amount of persuasion on the part of Sister Alexandrowicz would change Father Kavanagh's mind. So in desperation and after many prayers, she turned for help to the Polish ex-soldiers, especially Captain Tadeusz Szczerbo-Niefiedowicz, formerly of the Polish navy. He, together with some other Polish ex-soldiers, went to see some Members of Parliament with a petition to look into the matter of the Polish Girls' Hostel. The petition was successful.

After a consultation of the Government with the Catholic Curia, it was decided that the hostel would remain the property of the Curia, but that it would be used solely by the Polish people and the Ursuline Sisters would be in charge.

By the middle of December 1947, the rest of the Sisters and more girls moved in and the hostel was fully operational. It began with 80 girls and at its peak accommodated 120.