The Polish section of the St Vincent de Paul Catholic Cemetery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, commonly known as the Hallerczyków Cemetery, is linked to the establishment in that town in 1917 the Tadeusz Kościuszko military camp, where, after training, Polish volunteers fought in Europe for a free and independent Poland, thereby writing the finest chapter in the history of the Polish diaspora in the United States and Canada.

With the outbreak of the First World War, Poles at home and abroad recognised that the opportunity had arrived to rebuild a sovereign Polish state, which had ceased to exist at the end of the 18th century and had been wiped off the map of Europe as a result of the partitions carried out by Russia, Prussia and Austria. It was then that committees began to form in many countries, mainly in France and the United States, with the aim of raising funds and recruiting volunteers for the emerging Polish military units fighting alongside the Western Allies: England and France, and subsequently joining units on Polish soil.

Recruits from the Polish diaspora

On 5 October 1917, thanks to the diplomatic efforts of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, US President Woodrow Wilson signed a decree authorising Poles in the US to form their own army. As international agreements at the time did not permit their training on American soil, Canada came to the rescue, making land available near the picturesque border town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was here, on the shores of Lake Ontario, that the Tadeusz Kościuszko training camp was established, funded by the French and run by the Canadians, with Colonel Arthur D’Orr LePan of the Canadian Armed Forces appointed as its commander.

During the recruitment drive, nearly 40,000 volunteers registered at 47 recruitment centres across the United States and Canada. A total of 22,395 people were deemed fit for military service. All were sent to the training camp at Niagara-on-the-Lake. Most of the volunteers travelled there via the American border town of Buffalo in the State of New York, where the Polish-American Citizens Committee was operating, coordinating the efforts of other Polish community organisations and providing food, transport and accommodation for those travelling to the camp. It was led by Father Cezary Krzyżan and Dr Francis E. Fronczak, who also served as Buffalo’s health commissioner and was a member of the Polish National Committee in Paris.

According to data from the Canadian Ministry of Defence, published in a 1923 publication by the Niagara Historical Society, 22,174 volunteer soldiers from the United States and Canada passed through the Tadeusz Kościuszko camp. “The routine of camp life in November (1917 – author’s note) was enlivened in particular by two historic ceremonies. On 4 November, the consecration and hoisting of the Polish flag on the camp flagpole, and on 21 November, the consecration and presentation of the regimental standard to the Third Battalion, which was combined with a grand parade and, a few days later, a military ball” – noted in his diary Lieutenant Witold Hilary Trawiński ( The Odyssey of the Polish Blue Army, Ossolineum Publishers, Wrocław 1989), who was an officer at the Polish camp in Niagara-on-the-Lake. – “The camp flag was consecrated by Father B. Celichowski, who had travelled from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, acting on behalf of Bishop Paweł Rhode, whilst the battalion banner was consecrated by Father J. Jaworski, chaplain of the 1st Battalion. Both ceremonies were attended by a number of prominent representatives of the Polish diaspora from the United States and Canada, as well as hundreds of relatives and friends staying at the volunteer camp.”

Paderewski’s visit

On 21 November 1917, a ceremony was held to consecrate the standard of the 3rd Battalion; the T. Kościuszko Camp was visited by the great statesman and artist Ignacy Jan Paderewski himself, who, from a podium erected for the occasion, delivered – as Lieutenant Trawiński described it – “a stirring speech drawn from his patriotic heart”:

“I greet you, dear soldiers of Poland,” he said. “I greet you as a representative of the Polish National Committee; I greet you as a representative and plenipotentiary of the National Department. I am delighted to be addressing the soldiers of the Polish Army, our hope. I am delighted, and my heart is filled with pride, for I have heard praise for you. I have heard praise from your commanding officers; I have heard praise from the Military Commission, whose representative you can see standing right beside me, in the person of my dear friend, Mr Aleksander Znamięcki. I wished to go with you and share the hardships and discomforts alongside you, but I was not permitted to do so. The Polish National Committee has instructed me to stand guard over the Polish cause in the capital of the United States. In my heart I am a soldier, so I must obey. You, my dear soldiers, are the pride of the strong, the hope of the doubters, and the love of the entire Polish nation.

I am happy to see you in these ranks, for I see in this a harbinger of Polish victory. The Fatherland demands great sacrifices from you, but a great reward awaits you, for the freedom and independence of a united Poland depend on your valour.

Today you are consecrating the banner of the Third Battalion. Remember that this banner is the Fatherland, that it embodies her honour and all her virtues, and that it is a symbol of discipline, in the name of which you must stand beneath it and defend it to the bitter end.

March forward with faith in victory, and may God Almighty grant you success and bless you!

Long live Great, Independent and Free Poland!”

As a Polish volunteer officer noted in his diary: “After this speech, Maestro Paderewski approached the ensign and kissed him and the flag. Thereupon, three full battalions, with the beginnings of a fourth, marched past the grandstand.”

Lieutenant Trawiński’s diary is one of the most important accounts of the training of Polish volunteers at the T. Kościuszko Camp. But that is not all, for camp life was also documented in photographs of the time and in paintings by the renowned Canadian artist Charles William Jefferys (1869–1951), which are housed in the War Museum in Ottawa.

The ‘Spanish flu’ epidemic

In September 1918, an outbreak of the ‘Spanish flu’ swept through the camp. Thanks to the immediate response of the command and the camp doctors, only 41 recruits died, 25 of whom were buried, with the authorities’ consent, in the local Catholic cemetery of St Vincent de Paul (worldwide, this flu pandemic claimed around 30 million lives – far more than the number of casualties on the battlefields of the First World War).

The assistance provided by the residents of Niagara-on-the-Lake, including local women who volunteered to care for the sick soldiers, played a significant role in bringing the disease under control in the camp. One of the most active was Elizabeth Ascher, a reporter for the *St. Catharines Standard*, whom the Polish volunteers called the “Angel of Mercy” or simply “Mother”, because she looked after the young soldiers with motherly care. Interestingly, Ascher, who was born in Niagara in 1869, Ascher became so interested in the Polish volunteers’ struggle for a free Poland that she constantly followed their fortunes and wrote about them in Canadian and American newspapers, and for many years organised fundraisers to aid Poland.

Here are the names of the Polish soldiers buried at the Hallerczyków Cemetery:

Władysław Boruszkowski, died 21 January 1919,

Wawrzyniec Bester, died 25 January 1919,

Michał Byszewski, died 8 October 1918,

Bartłomiej Ciopak, died 31 October 1918,

Józef Dolwa, died 10 August 1918,

Fryderyk Głowacz, died 30 September 1918,

Wawrzyniec Jakubas, died 13 October 1918,

Adam Kempiński, died 16 February 1919,

Kazimierz Kozłowski, died 18 September 1918,

Stanisław Krukowski, died 22 October 1918,

Jan Kucia, died 22 September 1918,

Piotr Łoziński, died 26 September 1918,

Jan Marowicz, died 4 January 1919,

Adam Martin, died 24 December 1917,

Adam Murawski, died 29 September 1918,

Feliks Nowak, died 17 November 1918,

Stanisław Ptak, died 19 September 1918,

Wojciech Ronczka, died 16 October 1918,

Antoni Skop, died 18 February 1919,

Jan Siatkowski, died 25 February 1918,

Józef Sztopka, died 22 September 1918,

Mateusz Wiśniewski, died 15 March 1918,

Walenty Witalec, died 23 September 1918,

Józef Zarczyk, died 18 September 1918,

Rev. Col. Jan Józef Dekowski ( 1882–1949).

On the way to Poland

After 18 months of operation, the camp was closed on 11 March 1919. The trained units, numbering 20,720 soldiers and officers, were transported to the Polish Army in France, where they joined General Józef Haller’s Blue Army. Volunteers from America and Canada took part in victorious battles on the front in France, and subsequently, in 1920, in the Bolshevik–Polish War, helping to secure a free and independent Poland. Many of them fell in battle and never returned home.

After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the cemetery grounds were handed over to our country. To this day, it remains part of Polish territory.

On 27 November 1923, General Józef Haller, in the presence of Dr Michał Straszewski, Consul-General in Montreal, awarded the cemetery—a memorial to Polish soldiers—the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari Military Order.

In 1949, the former chaplain at the Kościuszko camp, a Knight of the Order of Virtuti Militari, Father Jan Józef Dekowski ( 1882–1949), the son of Polish emigrants to the United States and a priest of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit. In early 1918, he arrived in France with Polish volunteers and became chaplain to the 3rd Rifle Regiment of the Polish Army. He took part in the fighting in the Vosges, where he distinguished himself during a German attack on Polish positions, setting an example of valour and civic virtues through his conduct. After the war, he settled in Canada. He served as parish priest of many Polish parishes in Ontario.

In 1992, to mark the 75th anniversary of the Polish Diaspora’s Military Campaign, the American and Canadian Polish communities erected a field altar. This event was commemorated with a plaque.

In 2000, the cemetery was thoroughly renovated, with the old gravestone plaques replaced by new, larger ones.

Since 1919, when local women from Niagara-on-the-Lake, led by Elizabeth Ascher, visited the graves of Polish soldiers after Mass at the local church and decorated them with bouquets of flowers, pilgrimages to the cemetery have been organised with the participation of Polish-Canadian veterans’ organisations and nationalfrom Canada and the United States have been organised to pay tribute to the fallen soldiers and to commemorate the Polish Diaspora’s Military Campaign and the memory of General Józef Haller’s Army.

‘For You, Poland, and for Your Glory’ – this was the motto of the Polish volunteers who joined the ranks of the so-called Blue Army to fight for Poland’s independence; this slogan is also the motto of today’s Polish diaspora pilgrimages to the Haller Cemetery in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Location: 73 Picton Street, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada