Wojtek the Bear

A new sculpture by Alan Beattie-Herriott commemorating the life of Wojtek The Bear will be unveiled in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, on 7 November.

Wojtek was a two year old bear born in the mountains of Iran and orphaned when the soldiers of the Polish II Corps 22nd Artillery Supply Company took him into their care. Enlisted into the Polish army so that he could accompany his comrades onto a British troopship, Wojtek went to war with the soldiers and beneath a storm of enemy fire, carried stores of live ammunition. Wojtek accompanied the Polish II Corps throughout the Italian campaign of 1944-45, fighting at the Battle of Cassino, helping his Polish comrades in arms to capture the famous monastery.

After the war Wojtek, along with his comrades, was sent to Sunwick camp in Berwickshire, Scotland, where he roamed freely along country lanes, swam with the men and carried logs and crates of provisions. People in Berwickshire still remember Wojtek, and have not forgotten the experience of meeting a very large brown bear ambling along a county roads, and the Polish soldiers who accompanied him.

In 1947 Wojtek was transferred to Edinburgh Zoo, where he died in 1963. Right to the end he drew crowds, his former comrades in arms continued to visit him, and the old war veteran turned his head when he heard Polish spoken. It was especially poignant for the men to see their old comrade behind bars because they too were in exile, with their homeland in captivity behind the Iron Curtain. They dreamed of a day they could return home, with their bear, to Poland.

The memories of Wojtek’s former comrades in arms, now exiled and settled in Scotland, inspired Aileen Orr to write “Wojtek the Bear: Polish War Hero” and, with Krystyna Szumelukowa and Major General Euan Loudon, to found the Wojtek Memorial Trust in 2009 to promote public knowledge and understanding about Wojtek, his links with the peoples of Poland and Scotland and their links with each other.