BBC Polish Section

The BBC Polish Section (Polish: Sekcja polska BBC) was one of the foreign-language services of the BBC World Service. It existed between 1939 and 2005.

History

A decision to establish the BBC Polish Section was made on 3 September 1939, after Great Britain declared war on Germany. The first programme was broadcast on 7 September 1939.^[1]

Programmes consisted of news, press reviews, commentaries, reports and interviews, and were also used for transmitting coded messages and orders to the Polish Underground using prearranged selection of songs and code phrases.

The BBC Polish Section was required to support the Soviet Union, per the official British government agenda, and was prohibited from reporting on anything that could show the Soviet Union in a negative light – namely, the issues surrounding the Polish-Soviet border, the Polish population transfers in 1944–1946, the political repression of members of the Home Army, or the Katyn massacre.^[2]

After V-E Day, a decision was made to continue broadcasting in Polish. Like other broadcasts from behind the Iron Curtain, BBC Polish-language programmes were jammed and, in the 1950s, listeners on occasion would be persecuted as enemies of the people. Jamming stopped in the 1970s but was reintroduced in 1981 as the authorities clamped down on political freedom (see martial law in Poland). Jamming finally ended in 1988. During the post-war period, while still concentrating on impartial and uncensored news, programming was expanded to culture, technology, social matters, British life and daily English language lessons.

In 1996, the office in Warsaw was opened.

On 25 October 2005, it was announced that 10 foreign-language services, including Polish, will be closed to free resources needed to start a new Arabic-language television service. The last broadcast in Polish took place on 23 December 2005.

Key personnel

Heads of Polish Section

Robin Campbell (1939–?)
Michael Winch (?–1942)
Gregory MacDonald (1942–1945)
Evelyn Zasio (1945–1953)
Józef Zarański (1953–1960)
Stanisław Faecher (1960–1966)
Zbigniew Błażyński (1966–1973)
Jan Krok-Paszkowski (1973–1980)
Krzysztof Pszenicki (1980–1988)
Eugeniusz Smolar (1988–1998)
Marek Cajzner (1998–2005)

Heads of Warsaw Office

References

^ "BBC po polsku". BBC Polska (in Polish). 13 December 2005. Retrieved 23 February 2025.
^ Morriss, Agnieszka (14 September 2015). "The BBC Polish Service During the Second World War". Media History. 21 (4). Taylor & Francis: 459–460. doi:10.1080/13688804.2015.1077108. eISSN 1469-9729. ISSN 1368-8804 – via Taylor & Francis Online.

External links

[1] "BBC po polsku". BBC Polska (in Polish). 13 December 2005. Retrieved 23 February 2025.

[2] Morriss, Agnieszka (14 September 2015). "The BBC Polish Service During the Second World War". Media History. 21 (4). Taylor & Francis: 459–460. doi:10.1080/13688804.2015.1077108. eISSN 1469-9729. ISSN 1368-8804 – via Taylor & Francis Online.

[1]

[2]