A brief note about Polish servicemen and the Polish Resettlement Corps at the Trumpington Camp.
This is one of a number of pages about the Trumpington Prisoner of War Camp.
In 2003, Christopher Jackson wrote about the experiences of the Polish community in Cambridge, reflecting on 50 years of presence from 1948. This included information about Polish servicemen at the Trumpington ‘Prisoner of War Camp ‘.
At the end of the War in July 1945, the British government recognised the Communist government in Poland. Polish servicemen in Britain were given the choice of returning to Poland or staying in Britain. Christopher Jackson wrote that virtually the entire body of men elected to stay and (from 1946) were incorporated in the Polish Resettlement Corps whose members were accommodated in military camps, given pay books and civilian clothes, plus education, language instruction and employment.
The Trumpington Camp was already occupied by Polish servicemen as a transit camp. When they were demobilised from the Resettlement Corps in 1948, most of the Polish men who were at Trumpington stayed there and were gradually assimilated into the local community.
Arrangements were made for the Polish men to have Catholic masses at the Camp.
Christopher Jackson added that the Trumpington Camp finally closed in 1953, when the army huts were demolished and the land returned to agricultural use.
Reference
Christopher Jackson with assistance from T. Kubiakowski and Anna-Maria Norman (2003). ‘The Polish Community in Cambridge’. In Catholics in Cambridge , edited by Nicholas Rogers, Gracewing: 2003, Chapter 23, pp. 231-236. Cambridgeshire Collection , Cambridge Central Library, C83.02.
See also Wiesław Rogalski (2019). The Polish Resettlement Corps 1946-1949: Britain’s Polish Forces . Helion & Company.