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The Polish Resettlement Act 1947 was the first ever mass immigration legislation of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It offered British citizenship to over 200,000 displaced Polish troops on British soil who had fought against Nazi Germany and opposed the Soviet takeover of their homeland. The act also supplied a labour force to the demands of war-torn Britain. ==Background== The Polish contribution to World War II was outstanding, and directly led to the Polish Resettlement Act 1947 and the formation of the Polish British community as it exists today. In advance of the war, the Polish Cypher Bureau broke the early version of the Enigma machine and gave their knowledge to the British, forming the basis for British cryptographic breakthroughs that produced the Ultra intelligence that was a key factor in many Allied successes during the war. The majority of Poles came to the United Kingdom to help the Allied war effort after the Nazi-Soviet Pact led to the occupation of Poland in 1939. By 1940, with the fall of France, the Polish President, Prime Minister and the Polish government in exile transferred to London, along with a first wave of at least 20,000 soldiers and airmen. Thousands more followed throughout the war. Poles formed the fourth-largest Allied armed force in Europe after the Soviets, the Americans and the combined troops of British Empire. Poles were the largest group of non-British personnel in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Special Operations Executive had a large section of covert, elite Polish troops and close cooperation with the Polish resistance. The Polish Army under British high command participated in the Battle of Monte Cassino, the Battle of the Falaise Gap, the Battle of Arnhem, the Siege of Tobruk and the liberation of many European cities including Bologna and Breda. By July 1945 228,000 troops of the Polish Armed Forces in the West were serving under the high command of the British Army. Many of these men and women were originally from the Kresy region of eastern Poland including cities such as Lwow and Wilno. They had been deported from Kresy to the Soviet gulags when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany occupied Poland in 1939 in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. When two years later Churchill and Stalin formed an alliance against Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the Anders Army and marched to Persia to create the II Corps (Poland) under British high command. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Polish Resettlement Act 1947」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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