General Maczek’s Great Polish Map of Scotland.

The Great Polish Map of Scotland from the air

Aerial image of the Great Map from Virtual Earth

To byl polski hotel pana Tomasika, przyjezdzalam tutaj z moim ojcem, który takze byl zolnierzem generala Maczka - wspomina Izabella Brodzinska, prezes Scotish - Polish Cultural Association.

Generala Maczka, który wyzwolil Brede, za co wdzieczni mu sá do dzisiaj pamiétajácy i zyjácy jeszcze jej mieszkancy. Generala, ktory musial  ciezko pracowac w hotelu, aby miec za co zyc, bo nie dostawal od Aliantow ani grosza po wojnie. 

Na zdjeciu Iza Brodzinska i Maria Musur-Grieve na tle zamku Barony Castle w Eddleston.

Tutaj cytat ze strony o Mapie. 

General Maczek’s Great Polish Map of Scotland stands in the grounds of Barony Castle, Eddleston, once the home of the Murrays of Elibank, later the Black Barony Hotel. In the war years the house and grounds seem to have been in use by Polish forces, and some say an outdoor outline map was one of the features used to help plan the defence of the Scottish coastline which was under threat of invasion after the fall of Norway. Although returned to hotel use in the forties, years later the hotel came into the hands of a member of the Polish community who had been billeted there in wartime. He was a great friend of the General, gave the Maczeks the use of a suite in the hotel, and set about restoring and enhancing some of its water features.

Na zdjeciu:  ekipa TV POLONIA, która kréci reportaz o Mapie.

 


General Maczek had been shown an impressive outdoor map of land and water in the Netherlands demonstrating the working of the waterways which had been an obstacle to the Polish forces progress in 1944. He remembered this during his long years of exile in Scotland after he was deprived of Polish citizenship by the postwar Stalinist regime. These were not easy times for the General and those he had led. They were not welcome by the government at home in Poland. Here in Britain the official world had no further need of them either. No Allied government would offer a pension. It was a tragic irony for those who had given so much. But people thankfully, in Breda and in Scotland at least, continued to acknowledge their contribution.

Set in the open air in the Peeeblesshire landscape at Eddleston, General Maczek and his companions conceived The Great Polish Map of Scotland as a permanent three-dimensional reminder of Scotland’s hospitality to his compatriots. The coastline and relief of Scotland were laid out precisely by Kazimierz Trafas, a young Polish student geographer-planner from the Jagiellonian University at Cracow in 1975. Engineering infrastructure was put in place to surround it with a sea of water and at the General’s request some of the main rivers were even arranged to flow from headwaters pumped into the mountains.