Poland in Tanzania

The necropolis in Kidugala is a burial place of Poles who, after the outbreak of World War II, were deported deep into the USSR, and as a result of the Sikorski-Majski pact, managed to leave the place of exile and in 1942 found refuge in settlements in Africa. One of such six Polish settlements in today's Tanzania, and then Tanganyika, was the Kidugala one. In December 1944, it was inhabited by almost 800 Polish citizens, and in 1954 - as many as 900 people. The estate, apart from residential houses, had a scout club, a bathhouse, a primary school and secondary boarding school, a hospital, the Polish House and a missionary church. It also included several workplaces such as a carpentry shop, a forge or a sewing room. A cemetery was also established within the estate, and in 1944 it was surrounded by a wall.

The maintenance and renovation works in this necropolis, which lasted three weeks, were managed by prof. Hubert Chudzio from the Institute of History and Archives of the Pedagogical University, the director of the Center for Documentation of Deportations, Expulsions and Resettlements of the Pedagogical University in Cracow. They were financed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the Program of National Remembrance Abroad 2021. Thanks to the funds from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland aimed at supporting the Polish diaspora abroad, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Dar es Salaam financed the printing and placing of new information boards on the cemetery and supported the team of prof. Chudzio organizationally.