Savaria - A Vas Megyei Múzeumok értesítője 9-10. (1975-1976) (Szombathely, 1980)

Helytörténet - Lagzi István: A Nyugat-Magyarországon elhelyezett lengyel katonai menekültek történetének néhány kérdése

Near the river Danube, between Mosonmagyaróvár and the Slovakian border, two more camps were set up. In the barrocks for border guards in Püski 5 officers and 280 soldiers, while in Kisbodak, in the former camp of sappers 6 officers and 1,190 soldiers were stationed. 60 officers and 1,650 soldiers were housed in Nagycenk, in the castle of the Széchenyi family. In Kiscenk 5 officers and 550 soldiers were stationed. The possibilities for stationing started to dicrease in the beginning of October, 1939. The 180 Polish soldiers arriving at Patőháza on 2nd of October, 1939, were put up in a new camp at Bregenc-major. The buildings here were overcrowded; 55 officers and 3,300 soldiers were accomodated in the camp. This was the case in Petlend-puszta, too, with 55 officers and 3,300 soldiers. One of the biggest Polish military camps in Western Hungary was set up in Sárvár, in some buildings of the rayon works, out of production at that time. The peak number of its "inhabitnats" was 110 officers and 3,750 soldiers. The county town Szombathely offered to accommodate nearly 1,000 military men. It was in Szombathely where the propaganda of the extreme rightists had its effect felt. They were setting rumours afloat about what a shortage of food the refugees would cause and about how conspicuously the Polish manifested their anti-German feelings and about how the Germans would react on that. It was decisively owing to this that the Poles had to be removed from Szombathely. In several settlements the local castles were used as military camps : in Gyöngyösapáti the castle housed 57 Polish staff officers, in the castle of Bük more tan 400 persons were accommodated. For a short time, though, there lived 502 people in the castle. On 19th of September, 1939 the Minister of Defence ordered several more settlements to receive the refugees, Tapolca, Murakeresztúr, Újdörögd-puszta, Lazsnak-puszta, and Nagykanizsa among them, somewhat later, in the middle of 1940 Zalaszentgrót and Zalabér were also allotted. One of the most important camps was set up in Nagykanizsa. Owing to its favourable geographical situation and its closeness to the Yugoslavian border it became one of the underground centres of Polish emigrants. The number of the people cantoned here was the highest at he end of September and beginning of October, 1940. In October there lived altogether 3,302 Polish refugees in Nagykanizsa. » The local population was attentively watching the arrival of the Poles and the establishment of the concentration camps. The soldiers travelling by train were offered food and if the train stopped for a longer time, they were invited to homes and to temporary cook-shops set up in the railway stations.

9 The group of Polish military refugees arriving at Nagycenk on 25 September, 1939, were received by secondary school pupils, who also sang the Polish hymn in greeting and cheering the Polish soldiers.

10 In Sárvár the refugees were received in a friendly way, too. Some lines from an article in the newspaper Vasvármegye: "There they were sitting, the poor.

. .with all the horror of they had gone through in their eyes. Some bags, boxes, clothes is all what they have brought eith them. (...) An officer is standing at the window. One of those wretched, who, by good fortune, could get to us with his family."

11-12 József Szabó can remember how delicately the local population of the village Bük received the Polish refugees. They met a similar reception in Nagykanizsa, too. The local "... population received the Polish people with true sympathy and kindness. People from Nagykanizsa and Miklósfa were carrying food and cigarettes in baskets. (...) The relation between the town and the emigrants was warm and full of kindness. (...) Hungarian families were glad "to get close to an emigrant and to invite them to their homes."

14 Some well-to-do and influential people also supported the refugees. In Bük the Count Szapáry family took the Poles under their protection. 294