Become a Member
Life

In the steps of the Polish Moses

December 16, 2015 17:14
Heroic: Wladyslaw Anders is the focus of a new book retelling his exploits

By

Anonymous,

Anonymous

6 min read

Wladyslaw Anders was not dubbed ''The Polish Moses'' lightly. In 1941, the Polish general led his people out of slavery in Stalin's gulags to the "Promised Land" of Mandate Palestine. Catholic Poles celebrated Christmas 1942 in Bethlehem and 5,000 Polish Jews travelled with the army from the frozen wastes of the Arctic to the wartime streets of Tel Aviv.

Following the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland just a few weeks after their allies in Germany marched into the west of that country on September 1, 1939, Stalin ordered a round up of the Polish army and their families. They were put in cattle wagons for the long journey to the Soviet prison camps of Siberia and Central Asia. There they remained; many died on the journey, others from the cold, from beatings, malnutrition and disease. Those who survived were released under the terms of a British-negotiated ''amnesty'' with Stalin - in effect the release of the Polish army following the German invasion of Russia in June 1941. This imprisoned army had to make its own way across thousands of miles to
join the British forces in Iran, Iraq and Palestine.

Among these people, a ragged army of over 120,000 victims of Stalin's terror, was a future Prime Minister of Israel. The destination for this army was British-controlled territory in the Middle East. Here, they would recuperate and train for onward battles against the Nazis in Italy. In 1942, the soldiers of the Anders Army arrived in Palestine - 70,000 of them of which around 5,000 were Jews, many of whom were destined to become highly trained members of Israel's nascent military force.

If you haven't heard of this monumental story of exodus and delivery, then you are not alone. The incredible journey undertaken by the Poles from frozen captivity to pre-independence Israel, has somehow been buried under the weight of time.