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

As for the support of the Polish on a governmental level it was mainly the Prime Minister and Ferenc Keresztes-Fisher who could be counted on. Prime Minister Teleki was known as a friend of the Poles even before the war. He offered several kinds of help to the Polish people till the last minute of his life. For the sake of a revision of the Trianon Peace Treaty Teleki, who collaborated with the Germans, took under his protection tens of thousands of the Polish people flying from the invaders. He enabled more than 30 thousand Polish soldiers to fight against the Germans on British and French territories after leaving Hungary.

4 In his manoeuvres in the field of foreign affairs Prime Minister Teleki counted on the Polish, protected by the western powers, too. We can state that the relation between the Polish refugees and the Hungarian government was firstly determined by the interests of foreign policy and only secondly by the traditionally good historical relations and the generally accepted friendly feelings between the two nations. The all-society sympathy with the refugees and the circumstances

—organizational, cultural and social

—were looked upon with aversion by the members of the Hungarian extreme right. They did their best to cause difficulties and ti poison the atmosphere, but all in vain, for Hungarian population was heartfully receiving the refugees, with flowers and food, not rarely shouting "Long live the Poles" at their arrival. The noble and devoted humanitarian activities of those helping the Polish people cannot but be highly appreciated. Presumably, the majority did not realize that they were playing anractive role in strengthening historical relations between Hungary and Poland. "And what they did not think of at all was that their activity was considered anti-German and anti-fascist later, at the time of the German occupation of Hungary".

6 There were quite a few people who instinctly or intentionally, out of political considerations supported the Polish as against the Germans. This paper intends to survey some problems of the stationing and the camplife of those Polish military refugees, over 20,000 in number, who were directed to the western counties of Hungary. Stationing Conditions An important part

—almost the half

—of the Polish refugees were stationed in Western and West-Southern Hungary. Hungarian authorities had no time to prepare for their reception properly, so several "temporary" camps had to be set up. It took several weeks to instál the camps and organize sanitation (consulting room and infirmary, for example). Problems could be solved in days in cases when the Polish soldiers were stationed in vacant barrocks (as in Rajka, Kisbodak), at other places (e.g. Bregenc-major, Petlend-puszta) it took several weeks to establish basic neccessities. In judging the stationing conditions the Poles had mostly political considerations in sight. Their request to be stationed far from the Germans and to get close to the border between Hungary and Yugoslavia could not be answered in lack of proper buildings. (The protest of Germany's envoy to Hungary was also taken into consideration). As a result of all these, several tens of thousands of military men were stationed in the Northern and North-Western settlements of the country, too. In the barracks in Teleki street at Győr, an important traffic junction of Western Hungary, 177 Polish officers and 30 soldiers were stationed, while in the barracks of the infantry 392 officers, 39 members of their families and 80 persons serving in the ranks found accomodation. In Mosonmagyaróvár, too, there were several military concentration camps. A "camp" was set up in the building of the saltpetreworks, out of use at that time, where 23 officers and 1,100 soldiers were accomodated. In a village, hardly 4 kilometres from the Austrian border, Rajka, 5 officers and 203 soldiers were put up in a vacant barrocks for border guards. 293