Kazimierz Odrobny

Kazimierz Odrobny believed that the situation of refugees in the Federal Republic of Germany could only be improved by an international, central refugee organisation. That is why, in the second half of the 1950s, he supported the expansion of the Central Association of Foreign Refugees, an umbrella organisation intended to include all refugee representations. In time this resulted in the Central Association for Foreign Refugees in the Federal Republic of Germany (ZAF). This development was primarily intended to support the focus of all efforts for war reparations from the Bonn government. Odrobny was appointed Secretary General in the new institution. This meant that he was now active on a voluntary basis in two associations, the ZPU and the ZAF. This was also the period in which he made considerable efforts to obtain compensation for the former prisoners of German concentration camps. In these proceedings, both organisations cooperated closely with the lawyer Mieczysław Chmielewski, the most important representative of refugees in the Federal Republic of Germany.

As chairman of the ZPU, he politicized the association, in violation of the political consensus established in 1951. By inserting his familiar employees, who were part of the SN environment, in the central and regional association structures, he increased his influence on the orientation of the ZPU and on the association's staff. His involvement brought into the organisation the SN party activists who were associated with the “Berg affair”, i.e. with the events in the “North” and “South” centres of the Political Council in Germany. Many of them soon took on tasks in the central ZPU bodies: in the Association Court, in the Audit Commission, in the Executive Board and in the District Boards. For years he surrounded himself with people who shared and implemented his ideas in the association, not to mention his political ambitions.

Since his work in the two social organisations ZPU and ZAF placed a great deal of responsibility on him, he finally declined to participate in the Polish school system and limited himself to inspecting and supporting schools in their efforts to finance their future work. In the 1950s he was able to provide financial support to the ZPU, which was then financed by the Free Europe Citizens Service (FECS), the Freies Europa broadcasting station, the Oddziały Wartownicze (guard companies), of the Polonii Congress Amerykańskiej (Congress of American Polonia) and the Polski Komitet Imigracyjny (Polish Immigration Committee) headed by Pastor Burant. Kazimierz Odrobny worked closely with the local representatives of Związek Inwalidów Wojennych, members of the former Armia Krajowa (Polish Home Army) and the Freies Europa broadcasting station in Munich. He was highly valued as an honorary activist in Polish refugee circles, and by the organizations that supported the ZPU at the time.

In his many years of work he never resisted contacts with Poland. He maintained constant correspondence with his close and distant relatives in Poznań and Katowice, with the Ogonowski and Zięba families in Przemyśl, with his colleagues from the SN in Greater Poland and Upper Silesia, whom he knew from the pre-war period, as well as his former fellow prisoners, who belonged to Związek Bojowników o Wolność i Demokrację (ZBOWiD), the Association of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy. He also made regular appearances at the conferences held by Polska Macierz Szkolna (Polish School Home) in London and participated in meetings of the SN Executive Committees in London and those of the Centralny Komitet byłych Więźniów Politycznych Niemieckich Więzień i Obozów Koncentracyjnych w Wolnym Świecie (Central Committee for former political prisoners of German prisons and concentration camps in the Free World).