You are a bear in the mountains of Iran…

Text by Giannis Nikolakakis.

And suddenly, an Iranian takes you in. It’s 1942, and you’re in Hamadan, Iran, watching a train pass by in front of you—carrying liberated Poles from the Soviet Union—on their way to fight the Nazis alongside the Allies.¹

They take you with them. You wake up in the morning and have coffee with them, and in the afternoon, they treat you to beers, and as a bear, you’re having a good time. They give you cigarettes, and you smoke them, taking 2-3-4-5 puffs before swallowing them. Over time, you notice your friends greeting other friends, so you start greeting them too. Eventually, you become an official member of the 22nd Polish Artillery Supply Company, and they officially make you a soldier. You are officially enlisted as a soldier, with the rank of private, and was given a service number and a paybook. You are wrestling with the soldiers and mimicking their actions, becoming a beloved companion.

And so, a bear ends up in Italy during World War II, with bullets and artillery fire falling around it, following its comrades into battle. During the Battle of Monte Cassino, Wojtek carried artillery shells into the fight. He was promoted to corporal and retired, spending the rest of his life in the Edinburgh Zoo.² But he was never forgotten; his comrades visited him until he grew old, throwing him his beloved cigarettes and beers that he had missed so much.

Sergeant Wojtek passed away in 1963 at a ripe old age (despite his heavy history with smoking and beer). But no one ever forgot Wojtek. To this day, he remains the emblem of his company. He remains a cultural icon in Poland and Scotland, representing the bond between soldiers and the unlikely friendships that can emerge in wartime. A strange but true story about how even a bear, who once smelled flowers in Iran, ended up fighting in World War II and becoming entangled in human misery.

But let’s end on a good note: Wojtek probably had a better time than many during World War II.

Footnotes

1. Wojtek was born in 1942 and was found as a cub by a young Iranian boy in the mountains near Hamadan, Iran. He was later purchased by Polish soldiers who were stationed in the region after being released from Soviet labor camps. The soldiers were part of the Polish II Corps, which was forming in the Middle East after the Soviet Union allowed many Polish prisoners of war to join the Allied forces. ↩︎
2. After the war, Wojtek and his unit were demobilized and sent to Scotland, where he lived in a camp near Hutton in Berwickshire. In 1947, he was transferred to the Edinburgh Zoo, where he became a popular attraction. ↩︎