Why Poland Needs to Tell the Stories of Its Successes in Asia

A small cemetery in Warsaw, Cmentarz Wawrzyszewski, hosts the very simply designed tomb of a man named Maciej Nowicki. The long inscription tells of the man’s achievements and presents a stark contrast to the tomb’s humble appearance. We learn, among other things, that Nowicki was one of the architects behind the urban plan of the Indian city of Chandigarh. 

Built in India’s post-independence era as a new capital for the state of Punjab (as the historical capital, Lahore, was awarded to Pakistan), Chandigarh was designed as a symbol of India entering the modern era. Nowicki was one of its original planners. 

How is it, then, that Chandigarh is usually known as a city designed by the famed French architect Le Corbusier, known for his modernist style?

I don’t blame the French for this, nor do I blame the Indians. I blame the consecutive governments of my own country, Poland, for not doing enough to promote such stories. 

Nowicki and his American colleague, Albert Mayer, were the original designers of Chandigarh’s urban plan. However, Nowicki died in a plane crash in 1950, when the work on Chandigarh was ongoing. Heaving learned of his colleague’s death, Mayer quit. The vacant design work was then awarded to Le Corbusier, who completed it, and thus his name is much more commonly associated with Chandigarh than those of either Nowicki or Mayer.

This is not the only such story. If Chandigarh is a symbol of Indian modernity, then Singapore may be termed a symbol of Asian modernity: one of the wealthiest and best-developed cities in the continent. Singapore’s urban plan of the late 1960s was principally designed by another Polish architect, Krystyn Olszewski. Olszewski went on to spend many years in Singapore and designed the some of the city’s most iconic areas.

Olszewski may still be a comparatively more recognized name than Władysław Turowicz, a Polish officer who took part in building Pakistan’s air forces after Partition. Turowicz is not only little-known worldwide, but he remains obscure even in Poland. He is, however, remembered in Pakistan.

Turowicz is still more recognized than the next two names on the list. What links the Polonia airport in the Medan region on the Indonesian island of Sumatra with an Indian stationery company, Kaybee School Equipment Manufacturing (in Hyderabad)? Once again, there is a Polish connection. 

In the 19th century, a Polish noble, Baron Michalski, took over a tobacco plantation in Sumatra. Given his origins, the estate came to be known as Polonia. While the estate is long gone now, the name remains. Hence, when an airport was established in this area in the 20th century, it was named Medan-Polonia.

As for the Indian firm Kaybee, its name hides the initials of an extraordinary Polish woman, Kira Banasińska. The wife of a Polish consul in Bombay, Eugeniusz Banasiński, Kira Banasińska worked with her husband during World War II to help Polish refugees fleeing to India, including children evacuated from the Soviet Union. While most of these refugees left India once the war in Europe ended, Kira Banasińska stayed, settling in Hyderabad. This is where she involved herself in the establishment of a Montessori school and a stationery manufacturing company. Banasińska died in 2002, but the company, Kaybee, still exists.

Instead of doing more to promote such stories, mostly positive instances, consecutive Polish governments have focused much more on the martyrdom of our nation. This is seen in what kind of publications or movies about Poland are being most strongly promoted: Stories of the century of foreign rule over Poland (from the late 18th to early 20th century), of how Poland suffered in the First and Second World Wars, of the Holocaust perpetrated on Polish territories, of equally atrocious Soviet cruelty, and of the subsequent decades of Communist rule in Poland, and of all the lands lost. These are of course important, and need to be told. They are significant both for Polish national identity as well in order to underline historical aspects of Poland’s relations with countries such as Germany and Russia.

And this history is important to understand the background of all the individuals mentioned above. 

Baron Michalski found himself in Sumatra in 19th century after he fled a Russian-ruled part of Poland. The urban planner of Chandigarh, Maciej Nowicki, was born in Russia in 1910  – because his noble parents were deported there and forced to work in a labor camp (this was the kind of fate Michalski was escaping from by moving to Sumatra). Nowicki then fought in World War II but left Communist-controlled and war-ravaged Poland when the war ended in 1945. This is how he landed in the United States, where he did some urban planning work, and from where he was employed in India, alongside the American Albert Mayer.

Kira Banasińska, having been posted in Bombay with her diplomat husband, is mostly known for helping war-affected Poles in India – and it is little wonder she didn’t want to return to Soviet-controlled Poland. Many other Poles made the same decision, just as Nowicki did, not to stay in the country after the war, when Poland came under the control of the Soviets. 

This was also the case for Władysław Turowicz, who was born in tsarist Russia before Poland’s independence, fled Poland when Germany invaded, and served in the British air force during World War II. He later preferred to work with the nascent Pakistani air force rather than return to his homeland. 

The second urban planner to be mentioned here, Krystyn Olszewski, who contributed much to Singapore, also fought against the Nazis in World War II. He came close to dying, having been sentenced to Auschwitz (which he somehow survived).

It should be pointed out that these individuals achieved success mostly without government-to-government cooperation. They mainly did so despite the failures of their own governments, and despite other countries controlling or attacking Polish territories.

Moreover, in the case of most of these individuals, it was exactly Poland’s cruel fate that in the first place led them to find employment and success in such remote places as the United States, India, Pakistan, Singapore, or Indonesia.

While none of this should be glossed over, I still find it doubtful that this historical background should be the main aspect of Poland’s modern image in Asia. For instance, World War II, which covered most of Europe, was very unevenly felt on the Asian continent. This global conflict ravaged Singapore, but did not directly touch most Indian territories, for instance. Historical aspects that are central for Polish national identity may thus not necessarily resonate in all Asian societies.

On a more general level, it may be better to focus on positive images than on negative ones; on past successes, not past failures. The Holocaust, for instance, should never be forgotten. But I have mixed feelings about how much Poland’s global image is tied up in it being the country on whose territory the Holocaust mostly happened. Great emphasis is put on, for instance, visiting the concentration camps during a tour of my country. I do not wish to be misunderstood: I do consider such a visit informative (in a depressing way), because understanding the Holocaust may be the only way of not allowing it to be repeated. And I say this having visited the former camp in Auschwitz many years back myself (and incidentally with a Pakistani family). 

However, what I am concerned with is the overwhelming emphasis put on this in presenting Polish history when compared to other, less covered aspects. It leads, I feel, to Poles being seen as a people focused on a terrible past, a nation that is often more ready to speak about its losses than its gains. We often experience this when talking to foreign guests who may start a conversation on history by touching on how both our countries had more than fair share of a cruel past – this happens, for instance, between Koreans and Poles. 

This is not a way to build a forward-looking image. If we want to promote future cooperation with Asian countries, shouldn’t we be more focused on promoting the stories of Poles who achieved much there?

There are some examples of the Polish government’s success in refreshing those stories. For instance, the group of Polish citizens who fled to India in World War II included a painter, Stefan Norblin. Norblin went on to paint the interiors of the Umaid Bhavan palace in Jodhpur (now in Rajasthan in western India) for its king. A few years back, not only did the Polish Ministry of Culture prepare a documentary on the artist, and made it available for free on the internet, but Polish specialists traveled to India to rehabilitate the decades-old paintings. 

This was a good move, as it combined the present and the past, and a historical success of a Polish individual with current government-to-government cooperation. One would hope that more such steps taken in the future and the stories such as the ones mentioned in this text will be given more attention.