| President Andrzej Duda has praised the Polish children of New Zealand’'s Pahiatua for cultivating the Polish culture while also thanking the country for accepting Polish refugees after WWII.He earlier took part in the opening of a square in New Zealand dedicated to the Polish children of Pahiatua and laid a wreath at a plaque commemorating the “friendship and partnership” between the two countries.
More than 700 Polish children, many of whom became orphaned and displaced after the Soviet Union annexed their eastern-Polish homeland, and about 100 of their carers, were invited by New Zealand to a camp near the town of Pahiatua in 1944.
Some of those Poles returned to Poland or settled elsewhere after the war but the rest refer to themselves as the Polish children of Pahiatua.
Duda said he wanted to pay tribute to the people who "keeping Poland in the hearts ever since childhood, for so many decades.”
“Poland and Polishness is in you all the time … you have passed it on to your children, you are passing it on to your grandchildren, and for this, I am immensely grateful,” Duda added.
Some of those children and grandchildren who met with Duda were dressed in Polish folk costume.
While in New Zealand, Duda also gave state distinctions for some of the children of Pahiatua for “exceptional service to the Polish community in New Zealand, for promoting Polish history and culture”.
“We lost our homeland, our siblings, but we did not stop being Poles. We still love Poland,” said Zdzisław Lepionka, one of the people awarded a distinction.
The meeting with the Polish children was the culmination of Duda’'s official trip to Australia and New Zealand.
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