HEROINES OF THE WAR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20112, 5 December 1939, Page 2

HEROINES OF THE WAR

POLISH GIRL GUIDES SIMPLE ACTS OF BRAVERY WORKED WHERE NEEDED LONDON, Oct. 27. The Girl Guides’ Association’s headquarters here has been sheltering Madame Malkowska, founder of the Girl Guides in Poland, who has escaped to England and who is resting here for a while to recover from her most tragic experiences. Although she is worn out in mind and body she has already begun to make plans for the future, and is hoping to organise some sort of headquarters here to get in touch with those Polish Guides who have left Poland. Madame Malkowska, whose whole life has been one of service, was in charge of a school on the southern border of Poland when war broke out. Warned in time, she sent the children to their homes on August 28 and remained herself with 12 senior Guides and two orphans—a boy of nine and a girl of seven. On the morning of September 1, the school was practically destroyed by bombs. Madame Malkowska and her Girl Guides managed to get on board an evacuation train. This, too was bombed, and as the pasengers scattered into the fields, they were machinegunned from the air. Escaped Without Casualties “The Guides, obeying orders, scattered and lay flat, as they had been taught to do. and escaped without casualties,” Madame Malkowska said, when she reached the London headquarters. “Afterwards they rendered first aid to the other evacuees, many of whom were panic-stricken peasants, who had herded together and presented an easy target to the bombers, who flew so low that the faces of the machine-gunners were clearly visible.’’ Later Madame Malkowska and her little party made their way across the Rumanian frontier. At a small town just over the border they found an orphanage which had been left unstaffed after the Mother Superior had recalled the nuns. Took Charge of Orphanage At once these guides who had left everything behind them in Poland saw an opportunity for service, and took the orphanage into their care. They are there now, still looking after the Rumanian orphans and after the two small children whom they brought out of Poland with them. Madame Malkowska herself made her way out through Yugoslavia, Italy, and France. In England, worn and exhausted as she was, she asked to be allowed to help with guiding here. When she heard that guiding nau made enormous progress in England within these last few war weeks her face lit up. “That is good,” she said. "Now we must do what we can to help—all we can to help—but our most important work lies in the future. There will be a future. We must not lose heart. Justice will triumph. Now, more than ever, we need to educate our children. Nazi Youth “Look what the education of the Nazi Youth has done. They were young—but so terribly young—the faces of those mere boys, who shot down our helpless people. It is not their fault. They have been taught hate is right. But it can never be right. The most important thing is that we should keep steady in heart and mind, and work in hope for the future. Our children are the future.” Madame Malkowska reported that there can be little hope for the Guides and Rangers left in Warsaw. Their training, she told headquarters, took them where the need was greatest, and as patrol after patrol was killed others went out to take their place, doing simple acts of service. Every girl in one patrol which worked at the main railway siation giving hot drinks to the evacuees was killed in one instant by a single bomb.