“Nasza Droga” (1952-1981) – A Polish-language foreign newspaper in Adelaide (Australia) and its “German” roots

The takeover of “Nasza Droga” by the Caritas meant that the paper received the support of the Polish spiritual and lay communities, which in turn created greater demand in the Polish diaspora [also referred to as Polonia]. Publishing the newspaper became profitable. But soon conflicts arose between Posłuszny, the Caritas and the commercial director Dudziński, which resulted in Zygmunt Posłuszny being dismissed in March 1957. However, because he was not willing to accept the loss of his influence on the newspaper, he threatened legal action and froze his funds once again creating financial difficulties for the paper. In this situation, Jerzy Dudziński took over the role of editor again. As editor-in-chief, he opted for shorter texts to the detriment of longer articles and commentaries to reach a wider readership. On top of this, he also allowed very heterogeneous opinions in “Nasza Droga”, some of which were controversial, and hardly engaged with the contributions submitted by the authors and organisations. This liberal editorial policy caused violent disputes which not infrequently involved personal attacks as well. Whilst the newspaper’s focus continued to be on the life of the Polonia community in South Australia, it also reached out to Polish communities in other parts of the country and issues from the home country of Poland evoked keen interest. Dudziński did not just use material from the exile news agencies, he also openly used the state-owned Polish Press Agency. As a result, the readers got a much more comprehensive picture of the developments in Poland because the information they got was balanced and they were also able to read friendly accounts of the events following October 1956. But this triggered an outcry among the politically engaged exiles in Adelaide, who believed that they had identified communist infiltration and propaganda. An article by Czesław Wojtysiak,[12] in which he criticised the activities of the Poles abroad and called for collaboration with the home country including its institutions in the Polish western territories [also referred to as “Regained Territories” – Translator’s Note], led to an escalation of the situation. When he then explicitly called for Polish sources to be considered, this aroused the opposition of the Caritas Council which ultimately resulted in the editor-in-chief Dudziński stepping down.

At the end of November 1958, Władysław Romanowski started as editor at “Nasza Droga” again and lent the newspaper a different profile. There were fewer militant texts about Polish matters and polemic articles about social and political problems of the emigrants, with cultural reporting increasing instead. During his tenure, however, technically qualified articles were published which were not so important to the majority of readers who preferred specific information from their surroundings. The employees at the newspaper at that time included Father Józef Kuczmański and Father Jan Rutkowski. Andrzej Szczygielski wrote political commentaries. Tomasz Ostrowski wrote the column “Co słychać w Melbourne” (“News from Melbourne”). Other authors, who distinguished themselves, included Zygmunt Konrad Bernaś, Władysław Dembski, Władysław Karbownik, Jan Sobolewski and Marian Szczepanowski. According to the editorial department, 900 copies of the newspaper were published in 1960. It still had eight pages but had a larger format. It continued to be produced by the small printer “National Press”.