Saturday, July 24, 2010

Tengeru

My friends in Canada I am about to visit this autumn, asked me to come with pictures and videos of Polish Refugees Cemetery located in Tengeru, near Arusha, in Tanzania. Some of them are former refugees from Tengeru camp... This is not only about a place of burial of more than 130 Polish refugees who died while camped in Tengeru, one of several camps in East Africa where Polish citizens escaping from Soviet Union during second World War found refuge waiting for the war to end so they could go back to their homeland, loved ones and neighborhoods...

Some of the did not make it and were buried in Tengeru, Kondoa and other places in East Africa. There are many accounts of their ordeal, I would like to refer you them instead of repeating those stories in my blog. Please, see the following links:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5
Link 6

I've been to Tengeru several times in past twenty years of my work in Tanzania.

 
On July 29, 2006, I led my fellow priests from Archdiocese of Kraków, Poland, to Tengeru, to say a requiem Mass for the repose of the souls of Polish Refugees buried there and elsewhere in East Africa. While there and later on that day - in Mr. Edward Wójtowicz house (the last living in Arusha refugee from Tengeru camp), I took pictures and video to commemorate that day. This is an account of that day I took on video and turned into a short movie:

Tengeru from Wojciech Adam Koscielniak on Vimeo.

May they rest in peace. Amen! Here are the names of all who died in Tengeru and were buried there (data from Polish Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania):


And we, living, may preserve memory of this holy place and respect for those who were buried there and for all who suffered as refugees during Second World War!

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