Edinburgh's second Polish statue

Unveiled this month, the statue of General Stanisław Maczek in Edinburgh cements the bonds between Poland and Scotland deeper still. Three years ago, the statue of Wojtek the Bear was unveiled in Princes Street Gardens; the Maczek statue, in the quadrangle of Edinburgh City Chambers on the Royal Mile, stands close to the Great War Stone that commemorates the Scottish capital's war dead from both world wars. Both statues' prime locations reflect the importance to the city of its relationship with Poles and Poland.

Look to the right of the bench - note the dates. Yes, General Maczek lived 102 years; a life that spanned the British premierships of William Gladstone and John Major. He fought during the First World War in the Imperial Austro-Hungarian army (against the Italians in the Alps); he died when Lech Wałęsa was president of an independent Poland. What a life - what military campaigns - he fought the Ukrainians in 1918, the Bolsheviks in 1920, the Germans in 1939, and in France the following year; he led Poland's 1st Armoured Division at the Battle of Falaise and liberated Breda in Holland, as well as the PoW camp at Oberlangen*, where many female soldiers of the Polish Home Army, Warsaw Uprising insurgents, had been incarcerated.

Unable to return home to Poland after the war, he lived in Edinburgh. Despite his stirling war record, he was denied a general's war pension by the British government, and worked as a barman.

It is fitting that General Maczek is remembered in this way in the city in which he spent nearly half of his long life.

Below: a wide-angle shot of Edinburgh's Wojtek the Bear memorial.

* This was the only camp for female prisoners of war, the first ever established.

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Another point of view