• A group of Polish-born people were crew members on the Dutch expedition which explored the coastline of Western Australia.
• The first Polish settler was a convict that arrived in 1803. He went on to become one of the earliest and most successful wheat farmers in Tasmania.
• Over the next forty years, only about a dozen Polish (mainly nobility and army officers) settled in Australia.
• In the 1850s, some Polish-born migrated to join the Australian gold rush along with the boom of migrants that arrived from other European countries.
• The majority of Polish migrants came through the Displaced Persons Program following World War II.
• These Polish refugees experienced; incarceration and labour camps, the loss of family, friends and belongings and the loss of their homeland prior to their arrival in Australia. These events can have significant implications for dementia care.
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• The population of Polish-born people in Australia peaked in at 68,500 at the 1991 Census.
• Since this time there has been improvement in the standard of living in Poland, as well as membership in the European Union, which has significantly reduced the levels of Polish migration to Australia.
History of Poland
• Refer to History