Fairford Polish Hostel by Alicja Swiatek Christofides

100101 CD71

On May 30th 2009 a plaque was erected at the gate on Leafield Road, to mark the entrance to the site of the Polish Hostel which housed well over 1000 displaced Poles and other refugees from Europe between 1947 and 1959. Alicja Swiatek was born at the camp and when she returned in later years and found there was nothing to mark the site began her quest to get the plaque erected. She has also recorded the memories and collected photographs from the people who lived or worked there and collected them in a book available from FHS. This CD was a talk given to Fairford History Society on September 17th, 2009 also tells about the background of how and why the Polish families came to this country.