‘We Would Rather Drown Ourselves in Lake Victoria’: Refugee Women, Protest, and Polish Displacement in Colonial East Africa, 1948–49

During the Second World War, a group of Polish refugees was placed in camps in British colonial East Africa. In 1948, the idea of relocating them to Europe for resettlement purposes brought about a fierce protest action where refugees petitioned prominent figures and organisations. Analysing this incident, the article explores the situation of the refugees on the margins of the mass international aid which emerged in the aftermath of the war. It demonstrates how the refugees negotiated their circumstances and mobilised their resources by engaging with the dominant discourses, including the concept of human rights, to their benefit and in doing so contributed to changing procedures on the ground.