Refugees: Frank Brangwyn: Lithograph: c. 1914-1918 ‘I was one of those that went from Siberia then came here. My father fought in the army but he was sent to jail by the Russians. But anyway, my father was in jail and my mother went to pass a parcel of food to him. She went out and left us at home, she had to wait till morning to give it to him. In the morning the KGB men and a couple of militia came to wake us up at five o’ clock. I was the oldest 16 or 17, there were six of us; the youngest was 3. The came in and said ‘get up, you’re moving to another place to live.’ We lived on a farm and had some things stored but they wouldn’t let us take much. I had to dress the youngest children then they shoved us on sledges and took us to the station.
My mother came back in the morning at about eleven o’ clock and she found her whole family gone. Somebody told her what had happened and she came to get us. They wouldn’t let her come in to start off with, she had to convince them they had her children.
It took us about a month to get to Siberia. They took us there, we were lucky as there were some buildings. There was a room about 14 feet by 18 feet and they put four families in it. We each had a corner. It was horrible.’
Frank Brangwyn was born in 1867 in Belgium and moved with his family to London when he was a young boy. He was apprenticed to William Morris when he was fifteen and by the time he was seventeen he had submitted a piece to the Royal Academy Summer Show that was accepted. During the First World War he was an official war artist. He was known for his large realistic images with great attention to detail.
The word refugee provokes emotional responses both positive and hostile from people. We are living in a world where more people are becoming displaced from their homes and are seeking refuge elsewhere. This is not a recent phenomenon and has been happening for hundreds of years.
To be displaced from your home and your land and sometimes forcibly removed is something most of us will never have to experience. The Polish that came to England and settled in Wolverhampton have given much to the city. They are active within the community and have worked and lived long full lives.
When they first arrived many were sent to a camp in Perton, on the outskirts of Wolverhampton, the conditions here were basic.
‘On 26 June 1948 I arrived in Southampton from South Africa on a great big ship after the war. That was my first sight of British soil. It was summer and I was freezing. Two days later I was in Wolverhampton and I’ve been here ever since.
My dad was in the Polish Corps joined with the allies; he was demobbed in 1966 and settled in Wolverhampton where he was working.
When my mother and I got here we lived in Perton, where they had the camps. When we arrived here, English people were very funny, they wouldn’t give a family a room to live together. So my dad was in a lodging house and I was with my mother and it was kind of like squatting in the camp. We weren’t treated very well, like second class citizens. The camp improved a bit except we didn’t have central heating like now, but we did have a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.’
