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PAST SCAPES
LANDSCAPE HISTORY PRESENTATIONS
AND GUIDED TOURS OF NORWICH
Stefan's Journey and in his footsteps
On 6th September 1939, Stefan Zółkowski set off with a group of 25 fellow officers on a 9,000-mile journey from Poland to Britain which lasted 10 months, passing through South-Eastern Europe, the Middle East, France and North Africa.
The Polish Air Force had been dispersed and disbanded after the invasion by Germany on 1st September that year (the start of WW II) and the escapees’ objective was to flee Poland and join the fight against the Germans in France and then in Britain to continue the battle against the Nazis.
Using their wits to stay alive and avoid detection and often living in grim conditions, they travelled on trains, by foot, commandeered-buses and aboard freighters, trawlers, passenger-liners and coal ships.
They arrived in Glasgow on 15th July 1940 before being moved on to Blackpool for eventual re-distribution and integration within Polish Air Force squadrons allied to the RAF. Stefan reached Norfolk and after the War where he remained until his death in 2003, aged 94.
In September 2019 and eighty years to the day of Stefan’s departure from Warsaw, his son Adrian (Żólkowski)-O’dell along with his wife Jane, set off to retrace his father’s footsteps.
They followed Stefan’s detailed diary through specific cities, towns, villages and locations in twenty countries using some of the modes of transport taken all those years ago.
Although they were not subjected to any of the hardships faced by his father during their two-month journey, it allowed them the opportunity to experience and understand the cultures and landscapes through which those brave individuals had passed
“Stefan’s Journey and in his footsteps” documents both odysseys, one separated from the other by eight decades and a changed world.
Includes short introductory talk, feature movie (57 mins.)
and Q & A session
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