Piotr Szkopiak was born in the United Kingdom but into a Polish family. As he grew up, he learned that his parents and neighbours were all World War II prisoners of war who had escaped the USSR but couldn't go back to Poland after the war ended. His mother told him how she had travelled from the depths of the Soviet Union through Persia and southern Europe to the UK, and how after the war this is the place that she had to learn to call home.

But first and foremost, his parents talked to him in Polish, signed him up for a Polish weekend school, and raised him as a person with a double identity: Polish and British. This in-betweenness has been something that strongly influenced his life and he reflects on it all in an interview he gave to Karolina Jackowiak, who on behalf of the Poles in South London organisation, was working on the Local Heroes Archive oral history project. We, at SFTEW, liked the story so much that we decided to turn it into one of our episodes.

Click here to get the transcript

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Further listening

• ORPHANS // the SFTEW episode we mention in the podcast: how 700 Polish children made an unlikely journey from the depths of Siberia to the New Zealand countryside.
• BEAR // an even more unlikely tale from us at SFTEW: the bear who fought in World War II alongside Anders’ Army.

Further reading

• Artists In Arms // the incredible odyssey of Anders’ Army, told through a multimedia guide from Culture.pl
• Soldiers, Artists: The Exhibitions of Anders’ Army // on Culture.pl
• Piotr Szkopiak // Piotr's IMDB profile
• Cultivating Polish Folk Dance in 1970s South London // another story from the Local Heroes Archive project
• Memories of South London’s Polish Music Scene // another story from the Local Heroes Archive project
• Poles in South London // the community’s official website

Thanks

Piotr Szkopiak // for letting us turn his story into a podcast episode.

Poles in South London // especially Marta Sordyl and Łukasz Wołągiewicz from the organisation, for reaching out and offering this incredible story to us.

Credits

Written & produced by Wojciech Oleksiak
Edited by Nitzan Reisner & Adam Zulawski
Hosted by Nitzan Reisner & Adam Zulawski
Scoring & sound design by Wojciech Oleksiak