Most of the funds collected by the Polish-American community were at the disposal of Rada, which based its organization on a network of thirty-six regional districts. By the spring of 1940, its leaders announced that the organization had collected more than $500,000; by the end of the year, Rada was gathering approximately $60,000 per month.86 In the financial report prepared for the 1942 convention, Rada made accessible a detailed account of all the donations received between May 1, 1941, and September 30, 1942. Day after day, name after name, Rada documented the financial effort of the Polish population, whose individual donations ranged from one dollar to several thousand.87 All in all, between November 1, 1939, and September 30, 1942, Rada collected some $1,600,000.88
Cooperating closely with the American Red Cross and the New York-based Committee for Polish Relief, headed by former U.S. president Herbert Hoover, Rada worked to overcome difficulties of access to occupied Poland. Although it was impossible to deliver any assistance to the Soviet zone of occupation or to the Polish population deported to Siberia, some goods were shipped to the German-occupied areas of Poland until the spring of 1940. Rada also provided humanitarian aid to Polish civilian refugees in Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, France, Switzerland, and Britain, as well as to Polish soldiers and officers in German POW camps. After the outbreak of war between Germany and the Soviet Union, followed by Soviet entry into the Allied camp, Rada was able finally to reach Polish deportees in Russia. Assistance also was extended to the Anders Army and to refugees scattered in the Middle East, Africa, and India.89
After Pearl Harbor, Rada Polonii Amerykańskiej coordinated its activities with the national war effort. As Polish War Relief, Rada became a chartered member of the National War Fund, which after 1943 consolidated all fund drives.90 Despite difficulties, Rada managed to send Polish POWs in Germany approximately twelve thousand food packages a month.91 When the Allied invasion of Normandy disrupted delivery of the humanitarian aid in Europe, Rada focused on Polish refugees in different parts of the world, including Egypt, Kenya, Rhodesia, Uganda, Tanganyika, Palestine, and Mexico. Rada continued its activities after the war, becoming American Relief for Poland in 1946. According to Świetlik’s detailed report presented at Rada’s convention in Buffalo in December 1948, between October 1939 and October 1948, Rada had distributed the staggering total of $20 million in humanitarian aid.92
Throughout the war, Rada systematically informed Polonia of the plight of Polish refugees. Its publicity efforts were a continuation of a larger propaganda action coordinated by Community and War Chests and designed to educate and appeal to Americans in general. In his report to Rada’s 1942 national convention, Świetlik reviewed Rada’s accomplishments in publicity for the Polish cause. “We do not use this word,” he said, “and do not talk much about propaganda, but the fact is that . . . we have done a lot to aid propaganda on behalf of Poland.”93 Dissemination of information on the Polish population outside of Poland remained a large part of that publicity campaign.94 In the brochure The Facts about the Polish War Relief, published in English early in 1945, Rada presented its aims and program for the future and summarized its wartime activities and achievements. The brochure recapped the story of Polish refugees in different parts of the world as well as that of prisoners in German POW and concentration camps. Graphic pictures illustrated the suffering, death, hunger, and terrible living conditions. Some photographs showed temporary communities built by the exiles: a church erected by them in Valivade, India; a women’s workshop in an African camp; and Polish medical students working at the Paderewski Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland.95 Another publication, entitled Poland’s Children, focused on the fate of the “war’s little victims” both in Poland and in exile; according to the brochure’s authors, “the children—the most helpless victims of the war— have always been the object of [the Polish War Relief’s] special attention.”96 Expressive drawings depicting the suffering of Poles by the recognized Polish artist W. T. Benda decorated the covers of both brochures. Their postersize enlargements hung on the walls of Rada’s offices and its New York warehouse, reminders of the war’s victims.97
One of the most successful actions carried out by Rada in cooperation with the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) involved the establishment, maintenance, and eventual dissolution of the Santa Rosa settlement in Mexico. The Santa Rosa Polish refugee camp had its origins in negotiations among the American, Polish, and Mexican governments in 1942 and 1943. As a result of an agreement between the Polish government in exile and Mexico, nearly fifteen hundred Polish civilian refugees from India (mostly women and children) found a new home in the camp near León, Mexico. The U.S. Navy offered to transport the refugees free of charge. The American ambassador to Mexico was assigned as an advisor to the Polish camp and the U.S. government demonstrated a vivid interest in the fate of these Poles who had survived the hell of Soviet deportations to Siberia. Rada became involved immediately, appropriating funds for the purchase of food and goods for the refugees who passed through American territory on their way to Mexico. Although the maintenance and administration of the camp were the responsibility of the Polish government, several American humanitarian organizations offered their financial and administrative support. Rada took upon itself the funding of education and health care programs within the camp, the State Department’s Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations covered the administrative costs, and the NCWC pledged financial support for the cultural, recreational, and rehabilitation activities of the camp. Rada appointed a permanent delegate to the camp to monitor and report on the needs of the refugee population. Rada’s special commissions visited the camp, and substantial donations in money and in kind followed.98
The old, run-down hacienda in Santa Rosa soon was transformed into a flourishing and lively Polish colony.99 In the summer of 1945, however, the Polish government in exile lost its recognition in Western countries, and the refugees turned their eyes toward the United States as a possible place of immigration. Negotiations on the camp’s dissolution involved the American government and dragged on for many months filled with uneasiness and frustration.100 PNA/PAC president Charles Rozmarek succeeded in obtaining the American government’s permission to bring twenty-five orphaned boys to the United States. They arrived in the spring of 1946 and were placed in the facilities of the PNA college in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. Due to the efforts of Rada and Świetlik, Roman Catholic orphanages supported by Polonia in Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Buffalo accepted a group of 231 orphaned children. The NCWC also aided in that effort.101
The resettlement of Polish refugee children, sponsored by Polonia and led by Rada, also included thirty-one boys from Polish refugee settlements in India who entered the Polish Seminary in Orchard Lake in 1945. Two years later another group of eighteen candidates for the priesthood arrived at St. Francis College in Cedar Lake, Indiana. Another group of fifty Polish orphans came from India to America in early 1947, as a result of the efforts of the special committee to aid Polish orphans organized in Chicago.102
Many wartime refugees had a chance personally to experience the generosity of American Polonia, especially during the initial phase of their sojourn. The refugee wave consisted not only of intellectuals and artists; other exiles left Poland abruptly, were caught by the outbreak of the war in foreign countries without many resources at their disposal, or managed to immigrate to the United States after experiencing deportations or incarceration. Numerous professionals faced limited employment opportunities, even if they could find any legal or illegal work. There was, for example, a large group of professional women unable to support themselves