Wojtek the Bear [paperback]

by Orr, Aileen;

He and his mentor calmly walked into the barred enclosure that was to be Wojtek’s home – or more accurately, his prison – for the next 17 years. Peter untethered Wojtek from his chain. As he did so, Wojtek – as was his wont – gave the kneeling soldier a swift lick on the face, a thank-you gesture to say he had enjoyed the journey and was pleased his restraining chain was being removed. His bright, intelligent, button eyes alive with curiosity, Wojtek set about exploring his new surroundings. He wasn’t upset or disturbed in the least. From a kit bag, Peter brought out some clothing and an old blanket, all of which had his scent upon them, and laid them on the ground. A few minutes later, stifling his tears, he quietly removed himself from the enclosure and shut the gate. He and the bear were now on different sides of the bars. The deed was done.

  It took a huge effort of will on the part of Peter and his friend Jan to leave Wojtek. Standing on his hind legs, grasping the bars with his huge forepaws, the bear stared trustingly after them as they walked away. Wojtek then settled down to await their return.

  The zoo’s director Thomas Gillespie, who was on hand to witness Wojtek’s arrival, was later to write in his memoirs, The Story of Edinburgh Zoo: ‘I never felt so sorry to see an animal that had enjoyed so much freedom and fun confined to a cage.’

  It was said that for a full month back at Winfield Camp Peter wept every night over the plight of Wojtek. In truth, his sadness lasted a great deal longer. Having endured unimaginable suffering, this final loss almost broke him, mentally and emotionally.

  Peter Prendys was a rather shy, self-effacing man who preferred to keep in the background or on the fringes of his more ebullient comrades’ activities. He was meticulous in caring for Wojtek and quietly and without fuss carried out any arrangements required to ensure matters ran relatively smoothly for his charge. But there is little doubt that he was scarred mentally, and indeed physically, by the privations he endured while imprisoned in a Soviet gulag. Rake-thin, he never fully regained a normal appetite, a legacy of the starvation rations he had had to exist on in the slave camps and on the long journey to the Middle East where he would be part of General Anders’ army.

  He had loved and cared for Wojtek as if he had been his own child. His colleagues, in the months that followed Wojtek’s removal to the zoo, learned not to talk about the bear in front of him because at the mention of his name Peter would burst into tears.

  The Polish troops always believed that, somehow, Edinburgh Zoo was only a temporary solution. Some time later, at a Polish club in Falkirk, Peter was asked for his thoughts on the matter. For once, tears didn’t well up as he told his inquirer: ‘In Edinburgh Zoo I know he is safe. Now I have to look after me. Then we will see.’While in Scotland, he never gave up hope that one day he and Wojtek would be reunited.

  The bear pined, too. He had always been an immensely clean bear, carefully tending to his ablutions. But now his beautiful silken coat, which previously he had groomed meticulously almost every day, became dull and dusty-looking.

  Even so, Wojtek continued to indulge his passion for water sports. In his zoo enclosure he had his own private pool. Certainly, it was a much less grand affair than he would have liked, and it was furred with algae, but in the years when he was fit enough to do so, he swam and played in it nearly every day.

  As was perhaps inevitable, the Border Poles made numerous trips from the camp to see Wojtek in his new surroundings. They were encouraged to do so by the zoo, who wrote to the camp asking them to come. In the early weeks, that sometimes proved less than a kindness. Hearing familiar Polish being spoken, instead of the keepers’ puzzling English, the bear’s demeanour would instantly change and he would seek out the source to discover his old companions.

  One of the Polish exiles who regularly visited Wojtek in the zoo was Kay. He used to take his children to see the bear. Augustyn said the keeper had a soft spot for the bear and was quite prepared to bend the rules a little to ensure Wojtek got his much-loved forbidden treats: ‘If he knew you were Polish the keeper would deliberately look the other way so that you could throw cigarettes and sweeties into the compound.’

  As Augustyn had lived with the bear in the camp, he knew what Wojtek wanted to hear: a good conversation in Polish. It may have been a bit one-sided, but the bear loved to hear people speaking the Polish language.

  Augustyn said he always felt depressed when he left the zoo: ‘Wojtek was a different animal in the zoo. Though I’m sure they looked after him very well, he really looked fantastic when he was in the camp, running around free and eating what we ate. His coat was shining and his eyes were bright. In camp he was either busy looking for food or sleeping, not much in between; Peter kept him in check and he was no bother.’

  That said, Augustyn agreed with the painful decision to rehome Wojtek in the zoo: ‘It was the only thing they could have done in all reality.’

  Actually, it was a pretty good choice. Situated in Corstorphine, Edinburgh Zoo was created by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and occupies a site of some 85 acres. The zoo opened its gates to the public in July 1913, and quickly established itself as a leading institution in its field. In Wojtek’s day it was very much at the cutting edge of zoological practice. Today it houses some 1,000 animals and is currently embarking on an ambitious development plan which will take approximately 20 years to complete at a projected cost of £85 million.

  For Wojtek there were still occasional echoes of his old life. More than a few Polish servicemen, completely ignoring zoo safety regulations and to the horror of the zoo staff, would climb into the enclosure and challenge Wojtek to wrestling matches just as they had done back in the camp. The bear would respond joyously, revelling in the familiar games he used to play with his friends. There would be fun and laughter. But then it would come time for the men to leave. They would go off. Wojtek would try to follow them, only to find the way barred.

  Frustrated, upset and baffled at what was happening, he would go into a deep sulk. He was a highly intelligent animal. All of his life he had received mixed messages from his companions: sometimes the soldiers treated him as one of their own, at other times he would be handled like a small child or domestic pet. Through it all, Wojtek had developed his own very distinct and quite complex personality which suited him and pleased his fellow soldiers. His was a strange amalgam of ursine and human behaviour. But there was absolutely no doubt that, prior to being incarcerated in the zoo, he considered himself to be a soldier living and working among equals. Thus every time the compound gate stayed shut when his companions walked off, it was hurtful and depressing. All of his life, Wojtek had received conflicting signals from the men: sometimes they treated him like a comrade and sometimes like an animal. Through it all, he had ploughed his own furrow, clinging tenaciously to the belief that he was exactly like them. Now, once again, humans were mysteriously changing the rules and he was left on his own.

  Gradually, however, Wojtek’s jovial personality began to reassert itself, and he started bonding with his regular keepers. It took him at least six months to accept that he was no longer free to wander off, pursuing whatever interest took his fancy. Now, when groups of Poles visited him, he no longer pined when they departed. Indeed, his keepers noticed that a visit from them seemed to perk him up for several days. His memories of freedom never disappeared but visits from his Polish friends became enjoyable rather than upsetting. He began to settle for what there was, rather than what he wanted.

  Always a sociable bear, he took considerable interest in the people – and animals – passing his enclosure. He was fascinated by the march of the penguins, a daily event where the King Penguins waddle through the zoo. King Penguins have been a feature at the zoo since 1919, when Edinburgh Zoo established the first breeding programme in the world for captive King Penguins. The spectacle of their daily parade always drew large crowds of children, particularly in the holidays, and Wojtek loved to hear their young voices. Perhaps the sound reminded him of the school visits he had made back in the Bor
ders or the times children rode on his back during the country dances he loved so much.

  Wojtek’s old skills never deserted him. At the zoo, throughout his life, he remained a world-class expert in persuading the public to throw him little treats – often gobbling them up, wrappings and all.

  Towards the end of his life, Wojtek stuck more and more to his den, preferring to remain inside. Old and stiff, he found comfort in heat lamps and his warm bed. As his health began to fail, Wojtek retreated into his own thoughts.

  On 15 November 1963, he was humanely dispatched; his body was cremated and news articles were written. Although his fame by then had diminished, the memory of Wojtek survived. There is a story that he has a grave but I suspect it is a hope rather than a fact, making a memorial even more important. He was 22 years of age – pretty much the average life span of his breed, whether in captivity or in the wild. Indeed, many thousands of Poles did not live to see their 22nd birthdays.

  Back in the early 1960s Wojtek had a plaque on his enclosure at the zoo recording his history. The nearby Post House Hotel even had a lounge bar honouring Wojtek. Beer mats and place mats carried pictures of him and there was a wooden statue of a bear standing in one of the room’s corners. This particular statue is believed to be owned by Barnardo’s now, and used to encourage charity donations. At the zoo, the plaque about Wojtek has long since vanished. Although zoo staff know of the bear’s history, visitors search in vain for a public notice indicating his last home. That should be remedied.

  As for Peter, who was 50 years of age when the war ended, there was nothing now to hold him in Scotland. He moved to London, where he found work as a builder’s labourer. There is no record of him ever returning to Edinburgh to see his beloved Wojtek after that. It is very unlikely that he did so; it would have been much too painful for them both.

  However, there was to be a happy development for the serviceman. Peter was reunited with his family. He was joined in London by his wife, who was given permission to leave her camp in the Middle East along with her child. It is not known among the Polish diaspora what happened to Peter’s two eldest sons who had been left behind in Poland at the start of the war but it is possible that one or both emigrated to Australia, because his grandsons live there.

  Peter died in London in 1968. One of his friends told me: ‘I believe Peter and the other soldiers who had been close to Wojtek were broken-hearted at leaving him in the zoo. They faced a very brutal choice – the zoo or a bullet. At the zoo gradually Wojtek became withdrawn. Two bears were added to his cage to try and give him company. However, it was human contact that he yearned for.’

  That last sentence is a sad, but accurate, epitaph for the Happy Warrior.

  10

  Bears Galore Send a Message of Hope

  And that should have been the end of the story. Time passed, and I feared that even Wojtek would be forgotten. Today most of his army contemporaries are a dwindling band of former servicemen in their 80s and 90s. Even the official custodians of Poland’s history can be forgetful. One of the earliest statues ever made of Wojtek, today housed in the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, London, is used as a doorstop. It is to be found propping open the door of a small, rather stuffy private reading room used by visiting researchers – a salutary reminder of the fleeting nature of fame.

  Yet the legend of Wojtek continues to reach down through Poland’s generations. On the afternoon of Remembrance Sunday in November 2008, a memorial service for Polish servicemen who had fought with the Allies in World War II took place in a new garden of remembrance created for the Polish residents living in Redbraes by PC Simon Daley and officers of Leith Police, near Leith Walk, Edinburgh. With the Polish flag fluttering in a brisk November breeze, and watched by a substantial crowd, it was a moving ceremony, some of it conducted in Polish. At its conclusion, completely unexpectedly, children, some with their mothers and fathers, came forward to lay tiny teddy bears around a small model of Wojtek, a maquette created by Scottish sculptor Alan Beattie Herriot. Some of the teddies had tiny red-and-white armbands, Poland’s national colours, others carried miniature Polish flags. Watching the children lay their gifts beside the bear was a beautiful moment, a gesture of great simplicity and purity that completely overwhelmed me. I was not alone; there were tears in the eyes of all who witnessed it. I knew then with certainty that Wojtek was destined to be remembered and would continue to enrich peoples’ lives.

  Long after they were parted, Wojtek offered his old comrades emotional release; the Polish veterans often found it well nigh impossible to talk to their own kin about the privations they had endured during the war years, yet in relating stories about Wojtek they took the first steps towards unburdening themselves of their experiences. At that ceremony I recalled the letters I was receiving from complete strangers who felt compelled to write. One was from a Polish woman living in London, who said: ‘I am writing to you because I read about your campaign to create a memorial for Wojtek . . . As a child the only war stories my grandfather told me were about Wojtek the bear. I think that Wojtek really helped to keep him sane during one of the most difficult periods of his life and he had a great deal of affection and love for him. If I can help your campaign in any way, despite being based in London, I would be very happy to do so as I feel that a memorial to Wojtek would also be a memorial to those who loved him and the troops who served with him, including my late grandfather.’

  It was one of many letters of support for my quest to raise a statue in Scotland to his memory and to the Polish servicemen with whom he served. The sight of the children placing their little teddy bears (later to be donated to Edinburgh Sick Children’s Hospital) by the maquette of Wojtek brought home to me the true significance of my project. Watching them, I knew that Wojtek would continue to be a power for good, improving many lives, spiritually and emotionally.

  There is always something deeply moving about Remembrance Sunday. Whether the event takes place amid the panoply of a state occasion or at one of the small cenotaphs dotted around the towns and villages of Scotland, it is a time to honour those who have gone before us, protecting our freedoms and liberties. It is also a time to reflect on the folly, waste and enormous cruelties of war. Many of us come away from such events with a renewed resolve to promote, in some small fashion, greater harmony with other nations. It is as if the slate has been wiped clean and we are being given another chance to leave the world a little better than we found it.

  Wojtek, that artful Happy Warrior, had always had a way of eliciting an enormous amount of goodwill and help, often from most unexpected quarters. There was something about the bear which made people open their hearts to him.

  In that spirit, I felt certain the Wojtek Memorial Trust would be successful in its aim to raise funds for a memorial statue for the great bear, despite the fact that establishing the Trust required surmounting more than a few hurdles. I have no doubt that there are many more challenges to face.

  From the very outset I didn’t want Wojtek’s memorial statue to be a stiff military figure, nor did I want a cute and cuddly image of what was a very serious attempt to capture a special moment in time. What was more, it had to engage the feelings of both the Poles and the Scots. For many months I had an image in my head of the statue which could do this, but it was extremely hard to define in words. I had been approached by a number of artists and sculptors who wanted the commission, but none, in my view, had really hit the mark. Although they were passionate about the project, I didn’t feel that any of those who had approached me truly understood Wojtek’s story.

  But that was to change. One night, as I sat in my office in Sunwick Farm after dinner, still wrestling with the images in my head, the telephone rang. It was Alan Beattie Herriot, a sculptor I had heard of, but had never met. He introduced himself and then said: ‘This story has been going around in my head since I heard about it. I must do this.’

  I don’t know where Alan had heard about Wojtek – in all probability his infor
mation had come from the flurry of media publicity about Wojtek’s life earlier in the year when it was announced I wanted to have a statue created to the bear – but within minutes of talking to Alan, I felt I had found someone who really understood what I was trying to portray. He was on my wavelength. His artistic vision reflected the reality I was trying to capture.

  I found myself, in that first phone call, telling Alan about former camp inmate Augustyn Karolewski and the impression he had created in my mind as he talked of the men walking down the road with Wojtek in front of our farmhouse. When they stopped, Wojtek stood and waited too. All Peter Prendys, or any of the men who handled him, had to do was to place a hand on Wojtek’s shoulders and he would stop and stand there. If there was a conversation taking place, the bear would remain on his hind legs, waiting for it to finish. While keeping a weather eye out for any possible food opportunities, or possibly an adventure, he was simply another soldier waiting for his companions.

  I explained to Alan that the whole legend of the bear was based around his composure and his almost human understanding of situations. Gossip being exchanged by his mentors may have meant nothing to the bear, but his patience and good manners meant he was given a great deal of freedom whilst staying on the camp. Sunwick farmhouse was always within sight, so the men from the farm were no strangers to Wojtek. Equally familiar from the other side of the camp were the Fleming family from Winfield Farm. They had been uprooted when the RAF commandeered their farmhouse and grounds for the new Winfield airfield at the beginning of the war, but after its conclusion they had returned to start farming again. Though they didn’t anticipate having a bear around their livestock, like everyone else locally, they knew and understood what this bear meant to the men of Winfield Camp.

  When I came off the phone, I researched Alan’s career on the internet and was mightily impressed by what the art world had to say about him. Alan is regarded as one of Britain’s best and most successful public sculptors. His distinctive works in bronze have won him acclaim across the United Kingdom, France and Holland. Working from his studio at Howgate, near Penicuik in Midlothian, Alan is an artistic all-rounder – as well as being a first-class sculptor he is also a highly talented painter and has a strong interest in the portrayal of Scottish history. Wojtek is part of that history.