Wojtek the Bear [paperback] (13 page)

‘Apparently, he only speaks Polish and Persian,’ said Archie, who thought the whole matter rather odd.

‘Better wheel him in then,’ said the lieutenant, before
suddenly breaking off mid-sentence. His jaw dropped, and beside him his sergeant’s face turned
white. Archie, who was standing with his back to the door, whirled round to see what they were staring at – and was confronted by a giant bear. Corporal Wojtek had arrived. The shaken trio
were reassured by the laughing Poles that Wojtek was harmless and a seasoned army campaigner in his own right.

It is rather doubtful whether the bear was officially promoted from private to corporal, although Archie has always insisted that the men called him that when they staged their prank. He said
the bear was recorded as a corporal in the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) records to ensure he received official rations. Whether the Poles simply elevated Wojtek’s rank to give
their jape additional credibility, or whether he was indeed in the NAAFI records as a corporal simply isn’t known. Whatever the truth of the matter, we may be sure the bear enjoyed his
notoriety.

Despite their hatred of the Russians, initially the men in Winfield Camp clung to the belief that their homeland would regain its freedom and that they would be able to return. The Poles had a
touching faith in the integrity of Britain in upholding their rights. However, the truth was otherwise: the political battle for Poland’s future had already been lost. Many months before the
great powers sat down at the negotiating table at Potsdam, Stalin already controlled Poland through force majeure and he was not about to give it up. Poland had vanished behind the Iron
Curtain.

Many Poles at Winfield Camp refused to accept that. They clung tenaciously to the belief that this was only a temporary arrangement and that, when things settled down
in
the maelstrom that was postwar Europe, Poland would somehow re-emerge as an independent nation.

The authorities in Britain were keen to accept – at least publicly – Stalin’s assurances that for the Poles democratic, free elections were on the way. The young soldiers of
Winfield Camp were among those encouraged to return to Poland. In the transit camp that Winfield was becoming, some of those who could find their families took the gamble and returned. But the
homecoming for many ended in heartache and despair. Some returned to the ‘new’ Poland only to be shot or disappeared as traitors. Scanty details of these new purges eventually
percolated back to the UK usually through news reports from the BBC. Other information filtered back from organisations overseeing the return of troops; they too hinted at many atrocities.
Stateless and abandoned as a nation, the remaining Poles fought a political battle behind the scenes to be allowed to remain in the UK.

While that battle was in progress many of the men took the opportunity to visit other parts of the country, prospecting for jobs and a new future. Because of the large number of camps where they
could stay, it was easy – and inexpensive – to travel around. Quite often the men would be given official leave to go and visit fellow Poles in other towns or simply to use the time to
explore life in Scotland. It was a way of preparing them for civilian life in the Scottish community. Like many before him, Peter decided to explore his options and visit friends. He left Winfield
Camp on a two-week furlough. It was the first time Peter had ever left his charge for more than a couple of days, but he didn’t expect any trouble.

Leaving Wojtek at the camp was a fairly simple operation.
Everyone knew the drill and as the bear knew and was friendly with many of the men there was no great disruption
to his daily routine. Even so, Wojtek regarded Peter as his mother and the bear was uneasy when he left. Even though Wojtek would obey and play with the other soldiers, during the brief periods he
and Peter were apart Wojtek would mourn his absence either by throwing the occasional tantrum or descending into unusual quietness. This usually passed as other distractions appeared, and the men
would cajole him with food or toys such as lorry tyres or footballs to raise his spirits.

The two weeks passed moderately well; there were no real incidents apart from the odd tantrum before bedtime and occasions when he would go walkabout on a hunt for his missing parent. The day
Peter appeared back on camp their reunion proved a lot more exciting – and dangerous – than he had bargained for.

At the sight of his mentor, a joyous Wojtek came lumbering towards him and embraced him in a massive bear hug. Unfortunately, Wojtek was so overjoyed by Peter’s return that it was a real
bear hug, one that came close to crushing the life out of him. The bear had completely forgotten how powerful he was. Poor Peter was close to suffocation: his face began to turn purple and he could
feel his ribs start to give under the pressure of Wojtek’s embrace. Realising Wojtek was crushing him to death, the men panicked for a second, not knowing how to get the bear to release him.
Luckily Peter knew. The only way to stun an unsuspecting bear out of its actions was to hit it square on the nose – its most sensitive part.

Although close to passing out, Peter managed to land a heavy blow straight on Wojtek’s long black snout. It was a
punch that hurt him as much to deliver as it did
Wojtek to receive it but it jolted the overexcited bear into releasing him. In a split second, the joy of their reunion turned to sorrow. Wojtek, eyes watering from the pain and the shock of his
master striking him, sat down on the rough dirt track and sobbed inconsolably. He melted into absolute despair; the pain and rejection were too much for him. He was completely unaware he had come
close to killing the person he most loved in the world.

Needless to say, Peter, too, was overcome with regret but he’d had no choice in the matter. The bear would have killed him with love. Throughout Wojtek’s life there had been very few
incidents involving the bear which could have been construed as dangerous. His most redeeming qualities were his mild manners and docile nature.

Peter consoled the broken-hearted beast with comforting words and soothing strokes across his back. Although still shocked, Wojtek recovered from his humiliation, accepting a tasty snack Peter
had brought in his pocket for the bear on his return. The relationship restored, life drifted back to normal, but it was Wojtek’s last bear hug.

Meanwhile, as weeks stretched into months, the men at camp found themselves trying to survive the boredom of camp life while coping with the growing disillusionment of being left without a
homeland and without a future. As 1946 wore on well into 1947, there seemed to be no resolution in sight. Looking back at those days of uncertainty and confusion, Augustyn Karolewski (Kay) said:
‘If you had told me 60 years ago I would still be living in Scotland now I would have thought you were mad. I would never have believed you. In my wildest dreams it never crossed my
mind.’

Undoubtedly the meeting of the girl who was to become his wife heavily influenced his decision to settle in Scotland. But perhaps so too did the words of his future
father-in-law. When Kay went to see him about walking out with his daughter, he was asked, not unnaturally, about his prospects and his ability to support a wife and family. ‘Well,’
said Kay cautiously, ‘I don’t really know. I haven’t got a job, I’ve no money, I haven’t got a home and I haven’t got a country . . .’

‘I’m nae interested in your past; that’s behind you,’ was the blunt response. ‘I’m interested in what’s in front of you.’

Kay, widely known as a prodigious worker on the farms nearby, quickly took the point. It seems almost superfluous to add that in 1948 he married the girl of his dreams with the full-hearted
approval of his father-in-law, and the couple went on to have a family of four.

For Kay, there was to be a happy and successful life in Scotland. For Wojtek the future was much more problematic. He had lived all his life pretty much like a human being. Because of it, he
confounded animal experts with his behaviour. My grandfather and other witnesses said you could walk up to Wojtek and look him straight in the eye – which in the ursine world would be
interpreted as an aggressive challenge, eliciting a belligerent response. That simply didn’t happen with Wojtek. He was very comfortable making eye-to-eye contact and considered it
non-threatening.

Equally, his famed dexterity puzzled animal behaviourists. According to his companions, Wojtek could pick up a matchstick from the palms of their hands as swiftly as any human being. Experts say
this is impossible – bears aren’t
physically equipped with that deftness. The fact is, he did these ‘impossible’ things, and there is no real
explanation for them, except from Kay: ‘The men had nothing, no possessions, he was all they had. They put everything they had into him and he gave everything back that they needed. He
wasn’t exploited or forced to do the things he did, he did them because he wanted to do them.’

That statement is indubitably true. But as time wore on things were changing. A new era had arrived and storm clouds were gathering to imperil Wojtek’s happy existence. Throughout 1947 the
men from Winfield Camp were steadily being demobbed, some to reunite with their families, others to emigrate to Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia, and still more to England, where jobs were
more plentiful. With every month that passed the question became more clamorous: what was to be the fate of Wojtek? He was going to be demobbed, too.

After months of vacillation about what to do with Wojtek, a decision about his future had to be made. There was a certain inevitability to it. After years of being treated like one of their own,
Wojtek was to revert to being treated like an animal. He was to go to a zoo.

How do you describe the end of the world? For Wojtek it was a crisp Saturday morning in November 1947. Hoarfrost covered the fields and hedgerows and
the frost-rimed corrugated roofs of Winfield Camp’s Nissen huts glinted in the weak winter sunshine. It was the sort of morning the bear loved. To the onlookers, his former comrades-in-arms
who stopped by his hut to pet him and talk to him, never had Wojtek’s thick fur seemed more lustrous and clean-scented. Never had he appeared so content, and so oblivious to the knowledge
that this was the day he was to be transferred to Edinburgh Zoo.

At his hut, as usual, Wojtek waited for Peter Prendys to free him from his tether. And as usual, he licked Peter’s face, his normal morning greeting to him, while the serviceman undid his
overnight restraint for the last time.

In camp the mood was grim. As they watched him amble round to the cookhouse to cadge more breakfast, many of the Polish soldiers were openly crying. The bear had been their companion through
years of battle campaigns; he was one of their own. They had faced danger together; they had played with him, wrestled with him, covered up his escapades from the officers and helped scrounge food
for him when rations were scarce. From cub to fully grown bear, Wojtek had laid claim upon their affections far more deeply
than they had ever realised. Small wonder there
were tears. But Wojtek – intent on being fed – for once didn’t pick up on the atmosphere. Perhaps that was a small mercy.

For months arguments had raged in the camp about what to do with Wojtek. At times the debates became so heated that the Poles almost came to blows. One faction was holding out for his return to
Warsaw Zoo, arguing that Poland would escape the iron grip of the Soviets and eventually life there would return to normal. That viewpoint had considerable currency in the camp although it flew in
the face of several harsh realities.

Any hope of ‘free’ elections had already vanished. More than a few of the Polish DPs at Winfield Camp, anxious to be reunited with their families, had taken the risk of being
repatriated to East Poland, only to end up being executed for trumped-up crimes against the State. Others simply disappeared into the Soviet gulag system, or the gold mines of Kolyma in the Arctic
Circle, never to be seen again. The privations of Kolyma were so great that to be sent there was considered an automatic death sentence. Nearly all of the Poles at Winfield Camp came from East
Poland and had already come to the painful realisation that it was simply too dangerous to go home.

Warsaw Zoo wasn’t a realistic option for Wojtek. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers had devastated Warsaw – and along with it the city’s zoo. With most of their animals
dead or eaten by a starving populace, during the war years zoo director Jan Zabinski and his wife Antonina had smuggled Jewish fugitives from the Warsaw Ghetto into the zoo’s empty cages,
hiding them from the Nazis. Others were concealed inside the Zabinskis’ villa, only to emerge after dark for dinner and, during rare
moments of calm, to enjoy
entertainments such as piano concerts.

Jan was also active in the Polish underground resistance, and had kept ammunition buried in the zoo’s elephant enclosure. Further explosives were stashed in the animal hospital. Meanwhile,
Antonina, using her own cash, kept her unusual household afloat during the German occupation, caring for both its human and surviving animal inhabitants which included otters, a badger, hyena pups
and lynxes. In all, by the end of the war, the couple had saved the lives of more than 300 Jews. More than 20 years later Jan was to be honoured by the State of Israel as Righteous Among the
Nations.

However, back in postwar Warsaw, the couple’s former activities were viewed less enthusiastically by the Soviets and the big argument among the Border Poles was about Wojtek’s safety
in that city. Those who were against him going were certain the Russians would simply kill him. They reckoned that, if they had no compunction about shooting returning Poles who had served with the
Allies, they would have even less compunction about shooting a returning bear who had served with the Allies.

As more and more demobilised Polish servicemen passed through the camp en route to building new lives for themselves in other nations, Peter, who in every way was the bear’s surrogate
mother, grew increasingly desperate. Every avenue he tried turned out to be a dead end. Wojtek may have been an honorary life member of the local Scottish–Polish Society but the bitter truth
was that he was homeless too, and no one knew what to do with him. There was no way that Peter and the bear were going to be able to stay together long-term.