Jozef Nowak was 17 when his town in Poland was invaded by the Nazis. He came to Britain to keep fighting – now his grandson Paul is General Secretary of the TUC
The names go on and on – 2,165 in total – and above them lists of cities – 302 from the city of Poznan, 308 from Krakow, 316 from Warsaw and 318 from Gdansk.
Above them sits a bronze eagle, the symbol of the Polish Air Force and part of the national coat of arms. Below, an inscription – ‘To the memory of fallen Polish Airmen – Poleglym Lotnikom Polskim’.
“My grandad Joe would have known many of these names,” says Paul Nowak, General Secretary of the TUC, visiting the Polish Air Force monument to pay his respects on the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
“Britain came into the war to stand up for Poland. In return Polish people put their lives on the line for Britain and to heed a wider call for democracy.
“Joe was one of 18,000 Poles who came to the UK and served in the Air Force. He absolutely would have known some of these men who fought and lost their lives.
“My granddad never talked about the war. He wasn’t one of those to regale us with stories. But when he came to stay, he woke up with night terrors because of his experiences.”
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Jozef Nowak was born in 1912 in Trzebinia, near Katowice in south-west Poland. When he was 17 years old, on September 1, 1939, Trezbinia was bombed by the Luftwaffe on the very first day of the German invasion of Poland and World War Two. Four days later, invading soldiers murdered 97 people in the town, which was swiftly annexed into Nazi Germany.
Jozef joined the Polish Air Force and was among those pushed back by Axis forces through France and Belgium, eventually landing in Casablanca, Morocco, as part of Allied efforts to liberate North Africa.
“In Casablanca, he faced a stark choice,” Nowak says. “He was offered safe passage to the United States, which at that time was not part of the war, or to be sent to Britain to carry on the war effort.”
18-year-old Jozef chose Britain and was sent to Liverpool to work as an aircraft engineer at the Napier factory, building engines for the Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers that fought in the Battle of Britain, in which 145 Polish airmen flew.
His Polish comrades went on to form the largest overseas contingent of the RAF’s battle over the skies of Europe – with around 18 to 20,000 seeing active service, and 10 fighter and four bomber squadrons staffed entirely by Polish personnel.
“It’s important to me that there are hundreds of thousands of stories of people like Granddad Joe, who never made newspaper headlines, but stood up against fascism”, Nowak says.
“And, as we mark VE Day, it’s important we recognise the contribution of everyone who joined the struggle for democracy – including those for whom Britain wasn’t their home. Whether you were British, Polish, French, Indian, Canadian, people stood together. Some politicians prefer to forget this contribution.
“VE Day isn’t a day for party politics, but I think it’s really important we reflect on the fact that democracy is under threat on both sides of the Atlantic. Around the globe, we’ve got people wrapping themselves in their national flags, who at the same time are undermining the very values and principles that make our democratic societies so fundamental.
“So, today, let’s remember the values our grandparents stood up for. For freedom and democracy – but also for the right to bring up your family in a decent community with a decent job in a decent home, standing beside our neighbours.”
In total, 2,408 Polish Airmen died during World War II, including those who died in training and in flying accidents. “People came together not just to defend a country but defend a set of values,” Nowak says.
“Wherever you came from, there was a sense you were genuinely all in this together. And after the war people like my granddad did as much to rebuild Britain as those who had lived in Liverpool all their lives.
“Now, with the populist right on the rise, this has become a cautionary tale. Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. It’s something you have to fight to maintain.
“I understand there is a lot of cynicism out there. But we’ve seen what the alternative to democracy looks like, and that was a legacy my granddad did not want to leave behind. We have to stand up for democracy, imperfect as we might think it is.
“The RAF museum close by at Hendon records that after initial suspicions about Polish airmen coming to Britain, over the summer of 1940 “the people of Britain took the East Europeans to their hearts.”
The 1948 memorial to the Polish Airmen, lies in a memorial park in Ruislip, just off the A40 in West London, close to RAF Northolt, which served as the base for fighter squadrons. It was designed by the Polish sculptor Mieczyslaw Lubelski, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who had served in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and survived a Nazi forced labour camp.
An inscription on the back of the monument quotes the New Testament book of Timothy: “I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.”
For many Polish people, VE Day is a moment for solemn remembrance, not celebration. As Polish Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski reflected today, it was the moment Poland “exchanged a German genocidal Nazi occupation for a totalitarian Soviet occupation and we only emerged into freedom 45 years later.”
May 8’s echoes are still felt. “Being here is very moving,” Nowak says, “But it’s also important to learn the lessons. We should never stand by and watch the weak be oppressed – and we should never appease those who attempt to bully others on the world stage.
“Appeasement only encourages those who don’t give a damn about democracy.
“It’s also a reminder of the ambition of that generation 80 years ago. At a time when the country and continent were in ashes, there was a national effort to fight for the Britain they wanted to leave behind to their grandchildren.
“On the 80th anniversary of VE Day, I will remember the generation who had the ambition to rebuild our country, and democracy that we can’t take for granted.
“That promise of a better Britain, that those people fought for all those years ago, is one we can’t give up on, and it’s one we need to recommit ourselves to today, as we remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.”