https://www.polishfilmla.org/a-little-poland-in-india/
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/little-poland-in-india-memorial-for-ww-ii-polish-refugees-in-india-unveiled
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/it-was-our-little-poland-in-india-ww-ii-survivors-to-visit-jamnagar-camp-today-where-ex-ruler-offered-them-shelter-5379789/
During World War II, about 1000 Polish children from war-torn, occupied Poland and Soviet prison camps in Stalin’s Siberia, travelled all the way to India, where Jam Sahib took personal risks to make arrangements at a time when the world was at war and India was struggling for its Independence. He built a camp for them in a place called Balachadi besides his summer palace, 25 km from his capital city Jamnagar, and made them feel at home. The Jam Sahib’s gesture is said to have paved the way for thousands of Polish refugees to be received in other parts of the world.
Polish refugees in India
During the Second World War Occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union in the east and the German Reich in the west, the Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar State, Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja of Nawanagar, extended hospitality and sanctuary to more than 640 Polish displaced persons, the majority were orphaned children and women, out of some 5,000 refugees sent to India from Soviet deportation, and despite India itself suffering from a severe backdrop of drought and famine at that time. After their ship and plight was turned away by every country approached and when the British Crown governor in Mumbai (Bombay) too refused them entry, the Maharaja Jam Sahib, frustrated by the lack of empathy and unwillingness of the British government to act, ordered the ship to dock at Rozi port in his province. The displaced persons, lived in camps in several places in western India, including Balachadi (near Jamnagar), Valivade (near Kolhapur) and Panchgani. Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji's unparalleled act of generosity, saw him become patron of the first public school complex founded in Poland after the Second World War, located in the capital of Warsaw, and named
Jam Saheba Digvijay Sinhji in his honour. In 2012, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, honoured the 50th anniversary of his death, posthumously awarding the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and the Warsaw City Council named one of its city park squares in Ochota district after him - the 'Square of the Good Maharaja' (Skwer Dobrego Maharadży).