A rich maharaja took in 1,000 Polish kids during WWII, recreating their home on Indian soil

When hundreds of Polish children arrived in India’s Nawanagar state (now Jamnagar, in Gujarat) during World War II, they had already been driven from their homes, survived Soviet labor camps, and lived through years of uncertainty. The war had stripped away school, friends, and the everyday routines most children naturally build their lives around. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the children’s journey had begun years earlier. Following the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland in 1939, about half a million Polish civilians were deported to labor camps in Siberia and Kazakhstan. After the 1941 Sikorski-Mayski Agreement allowed many Polish civilians to leave the Soviet Union, some eventually made the long journey through Iran to India. A portrait of Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, 1935. Photo credit: Bassano LTD/Wikimedia Commons Creating a space to just be a kid again A July 2026 Smithsonian Magazine story recounts how Maharaja Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, the ruler of one of India’s princely states, Nawanagar, welcomed those children and created far more than a temporary refuge to wait out the war. Instead, he built a community where everyday life could begin again. There in Balachadi, nearly 1,000 children between the ages of 2 and 15 were given a safe place to stay from 1942 to 1946. A special camp was constructed near the maharaja’s summer palace on the Kathiawar Peninsula. The settlement included barracks, a school, a library, a Catholic church, kitchens, and places to play. The children returned to the classroom where Polish teachers continued lessons in their native language. Religious services and holidays like Christmas were observed much as they had before the war. Alongside food and shelter, the camp preserved familiar routines that helped restore a sense of normal life. Instead of wondering where they would sleep or where their next meal would come from, they worried about homework or raced across playing fields with new friends. He treated the children as his own children Wieslaw Stypula was only 11 years old when he joined the Balachadi community in 1942. In the 2013 documentary A Little Poland in India, Stypula recounted, “In this very grim scenario, I was adopted by people of a country I did not even know. It was here that I found happiness.” Digvijaysinhji called the children his own children. He would welcome new groups of Polish children, saying, “Do not consider yourself orphans any more. You are now Nawanagaris, and I am Bapu, father of all the people of Nawanagar, so also yours.” He was also dedicated to honoring their Polish identity. Anu Radha,the filmmaker behind the documentary, told Smithsonian, “He insisted that every day, the Polish flag should be hoisted in the camp, and all children sing the Polish national anthem, in spite of the fatherland not being free.” The maharaja with kids and women from Poland. Alewis2388/Wikimedia Commons Remarkable instincts without the modern humanitarian handbook Today, global relief organizations like UNICEF emphasize that children displaced by war need more than food and shelter. Education, opportunities to play, and cultural identity are all important parts of helping children recover from traumatic experiences. These ideas are reflected in UNICEF’s child-friendly spaces, which let children play, continue learning, and begin healing from trauma. They also echo a June 2026 statement from Save the Children for the International Day of Play, which says a safe place to play allows a child in conflict “to still hold on to part of their childhood.” For the children who arrived in Balachadi more than 80 years ago, the community the maharaja fostered became more than a refuge. It gave them the chance to be children again. The maharaja has not been forgotten. Warsaw has a Good Maharaja Square and schools named in his honor, and Poland posthumously awarded him the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit in 2011. When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Warsaw in 2024, he paid tribute at a memorial to the maharaja and announced a youth exchange program named for the Jam Saheb, whose first group of 21 Polish youths later visited Jamnagar. This article originally appeared in August. It has been updated.