Authors

Discussion

I will discuss the transfer of (post)colonial concepts between British, Polish, and African officials in West and East Africa during World War II. Starting in 1941, the British army recruited Polish officers in Scotland for service in the Royal West African Frontier Force, whereas two years later, the British authorities hosted Polish refugees from the Soviet Union in camps set up across their colonies in East Africa. Together, this was the greatest Polish influx into Africa in history, which resuscitated Poland’s prewar plans of engagement with the continent but also encouraged more critical Polish stances on colonialism and Poles’ own position in colonial hierarchies. In turn, the British attitudes toward the Polish presence in Africa fluctuated, with Poles being viewed as either useful or detrimental to British propaganda. In my presentation, I explore the ways in which discourse about race and German atrocities was used for political purposes by British, Polish, and, to a lesser extent, African officials.