Katy Carr has released a new video today in commemoration of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Wojtek (The Soldier Bear) was a Syrian brown bear and the mascot of the soldiers in the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the II Corps of the Polish Army in the West. Katy Carr’s song was featured on her 2012 album release Paszport, inspired by those Polish people who lost their right to have a Polish passport at the beginning and end of WWII.
The Polish II Corps soldiers were largely made up of those Polish people who had been transported for Slave labour to Stalin’s Gulags, slave labour camps all across the USSR during WWII. A total of 2 million Poles were transported for slave labour after 10th Feb 1940, after the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17th Sept 1939.
Wojtek the bear ended his days at Edinburgh zoo. Unable to return back to Poland with his Polish II Corps soldier friends he also remained in exile whilst Poland – Britain’s largest Ally after USA at the end of WWII fell under the Totalitarian Communism regime of the Stalin’s Iron Curtain which many say started at the Yalta Conference 70 years ago this year in Feb 1945.
Katy who has both Scottish and Polish roots will be singing her song Wojtek at the opening of the Wojtek the Bear Memorial in Edinburgh on 7th Nov 2015.
Katy Carr’s forthcoming fifth album Polonia (Latin for Poland) is released on 11 November 2015 to commemorate Remembrance Day and Independence Day in Poland. Part of Katy Carr’s intention in making Polonia is also to promote the longstanding, deep friendship between Britain and Poland, one threatened by present political and social prejudices. In a broader sense Polonia is a response to hate crimes endured by so many immigrants.