1/ I’d like to tell you an #WW2 story close to my family’s heart. That of an incredible bear that was adopted by Polish soldiers in the Middle East and accompanied them during the war through Italy.
His name was Wojtek.

THREAD

https://twitter.com/JanekLasocki/status/1220435882173440000

2/Animals played an important role in #WW2. Some were involved actively in the war effort (mules, pigeons) others were pets of soldiers (dogs, monkeys, birds) who boosted morale and often became mascots. #Wojtek was both. But unusually – he was a bear. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/9-famous-animals-from-the-first-and-second-world-wars

3/ 18 y/o Pole Irena Bokiewicz 1st came across this adorable bear cub in Hamadan, #Iran and bought him off some boys for some chocolate. In Aug 1942 he was introduced to the unit that became the 22nd Artillery Supply Company. Sgt Piotr Prendyś was appointed his principal guardian

4/ Wojtek soon graduated from bottle-fed condensed milk to fruit, marmalade, honey, and syrup. He loved cigarettes – to eat them that is. He also took quite a liking to beer!

5/ Despite weighing up to 200kg Wojtek was never a danger to humans. He grew up among the Polish servicemen and loved to play wrestle.

Footage owned by Polish Institute & Sikorski Museum, London ( https://www.pism.co.uk/ ). Visit when you can!

6/ Someone he did not take a liking to, however, was Kasia the monkey, who was a gift from @TelAviv Zoo. Kasia was always trying to climb on top of him and he did his best to run away.

(picture by Robert Broomfield, originally for Blue Peter)

7/ He’d love to get into army trucks. If a driver wasn’t paying attention when the company was due to move out, they’d get a shock when they found him in the driver seat.

8/ But why were the Poles in the Middle East at all? In 1939 when Germany invaded #Poland from the West, the USSR invaded from the East. Over 15,000 Polish officers were shot in #Katyn;hundreds of thousands of civilians+POWs were sent to gulags or special settlements in #Siberia

9/ It was only in 1941 after the invasion of the Soviet Union, that the Poles were released. An army began to be formed under General Władysław Anders, which in 1942 passed into Iran under British command. It came to be known as the Polish II Corps (2 Korpus)

10/ Over 110,000 people managed to leave the appalling conditions in Siberia with Anders. This included tens of thousands of children who were sent to refugee camps in British East Africa, India (but also Mexico and New Zealand).

11/ After reorganising and retraining, the Polish army departed Port Said (Egypt) to join the Italian Campaign. Pets were to be left behind, was the order. Very exceptionally however, Wojtek was given a rank and formally enlisted! There was no way they could leave him behind!

12/ The 2nd Corps played an important part in the victorious the Battle of Monte Cassino and Wojtek played a role helping his comrades-in-arms, carrying heavy crates of shells and ammunition.

13/ In between action on the frontline Wojtek visited the beach with the soldiers. Unfamiliar wih Wojtek, Italian women got quite the fright!

14/ With the war’s end, the 2Corps was demobilised to UK. Wojtek himself was 1st in Winfield Camp, Berwickshire,Scotland before being moved to @EdinburghZoo where he remained. It was said he only responded when people spoke Polish to him. BBC Radio announced his death on 2Dec1963

15/ In 1968my dziadek (grandfather) a veteran of the 2Corps,wrote a book about Wojtek. It was intended as a childrens book to help them understand the story of their parents and how they came to live in exile.Generations of Polish children abroad read it at Pol. Saturday schools

16/ Far more people in Britain heard the story than in Communist Poland. Dziadek’s book was read on #Jackanory, featured on @cbbc’s #BluePeter +serialised in @Womans_Weekly. It was 1st book in Polish read by @edlucas. Prince Charles @ClarenceHouse once said he read it to his sons

17/ Almost 15 years ago there was a revival in interest in Wojtek’s story. A documentary for the BBC was narrated by @brianblessed (sadly not online). The @tvp documentary (in Polish) filmed in 2007 can be found here:

https://vod.tvp.pl/video/piwko-dla-niedzwiedzia,piwko-dla-niedzwiedzia,25953151

18/ In part thanks to these a lot of people got to know the wonderful 95-year old Wojtek Narębski, who today lives in Kraków and is the last surviving member of the 22nd Company

19/ New books came to be written both in Britain and Poland, bringing the story to new audiences, by authors including Aileen Orr, Łukasz Wierzbicki, Gary Paulin and others. My grandfather’s book was translated into Czech and Italian

20/ Aileen Orr @holyroodhound is one of a few exceptional people who’ve put in a lot of effort to keep the memory of Wojtek – and those he fought with - alive. It was thanks to her efforts there is now a really impressive statue in the centre of #Edinburgh

21/ There is also a statue in Kraków thanks to Richard Lucas, and other statues in Imola in Italy, Grimsby in England, and Żagań, Sopot and most recently in Cassino unveiled by General Anders’ daughter @Anna_M_Anders

22/ There have now been many short videos, songs and animations, of varying quality. This is one animation I liked by an Israeli student