The Formation of Polish Settlements in North Africa after the Second World War

Abstract

The paper points to the forms of migration of Poles to North Africa after the Second World War, and the formation of Polish settlements in this part of the world. Despite the fact that Poles were arriving there since the medieval times, nevertheless the centres of Polish life took shape in the northern part of Africa since the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries these settlements would be established and disappear, and the contemporary Polish communities were established during a recent few dozen years.

The Polish settlements in northern part of Africa were due to the emigration from the Polish territories in the inter-war period, then the civil and military exile from Poland from 1939 onwards, the influx of Polish scientific-technical specialists; establishment of rightful diplomatic relations between Poland and North Africa; mixed Polish-Arabian marriages, mainly due to the fact that young Arabs came to Poland to study.

The representatives of Polonia in the inter-war period, the time of the war and the post-war period со-established local Polish settlements over the whole second half of the twentieth century. Few representatives are present in North Africa today, although contemporary Polish communities were dominated by Polish-Arabian mixed marriages, who began to settle there from the 1960s on. Despite that the 1650-member community in North Africa consists now only of ten per cent of Polish settlements on the Black Land, and 0.01 per cent in the world.