Susie Tsaclis, Tania Kopytko and Mary Zambazos are part of a social history project telling the untold stories of displaced persons post World War II.
Susie Tsaclis, Tania Kopytko and Mary Zambazos are part of a social history project telling the untold stories of displaced persons post World War II.
They came in their hundreds.
Refugees from a still war-ravaged Europe, hoping to escape the cruelties of the growing communist regime, torn from the only homes they ever knew and placed in a camp.
Known as Displaced Persons, they came on several ships, with the first group of about 1000 expected in June 1949.
Now a group of five writers are working together to tell the stories that, for much of the past few decades, have remained largely untold.
The writers, Tania Kopytko, Mary Zambazos, Susie Tsaclis, Bruno Petrenas and Mychelle Mihailoff, began working on Untold Stories in March.
The camp in Pahiatua where the Polish children, and later the refugees, stayed. Photo / NZ Archives
They have remained friends since their schooling days and have been researching and writing stories about their parents’ arrivals in New Zealand and their subsequent stay at the refugee camp, just 2km south of Pahīatua and where the Polish children once stayed on their arrival in New Zealand, just a few years before.
Tania, Susie and Mary paid a visit to the Pahīatua Museum as part of the research and spoke to the Bush Telegraph about the project.
Susie says a lot of these stories weren’t told because “a lot of them didn’t speak about it”, adding that in many cases it was traumatic for them.
“They didn’t want to burden their children with it.”
Some of the stories started off as mere fragments and a lot of research is being undertaken to fill in the gaps.
The stay at the camp in Pahīatua was reasonably short-lived but long enough for them to learn English and adapt to the new life.
Tania says at that time in New Zealand – the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was an assimilation policy.
“People had to get on with life and adapt regardless of the trauma they had experienced and war zones they had come from.”
Trauma such as escaping government repression or a communist regime, sometimes at horrific cost.
It was likely that the average Kiwi had no idea why the refugees had been brought to the country, but those who stayed in the camp would go on to make a contribution to life in New Zealand, either economically, culturally or in what skills they had.
Some even would go on to introduce different cuisines to the people of New Zealand.
The project will tell seven stories through photographs, written form via wall narratives and through a video, complemented with memorabilia and artifacts.
Six of the stories represent six different cultures: Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus.
The seventh story will be about the refugee process at the time as well as Government policy and the camp for Displaced People.
A series of events have been planned, starting with an exhibition at Square Edge Art Gallery in Palmerston North, where some refugees went on to settle, in July next year.
A panel discussion and workshops are also planned at the Palmerston North City Library so members of the public can learn more or explore their own family stories.
It’s hoped to hold an exhibition in Pahīatua in 2025.
Leanne Warr became editor of the Bush Telegraph in June 2023 and has been a journalist on and off since 1996 when she joined the Levin Chronicle, before moving on to other publications. She re-joined NZME in June 2021.
