Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello, this is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Rob Walker and today we're going back to the Second World War

and the little-known story of when Polish refugees found sanctuary in Africa.

It's a story that begins in eastern Poland early in the war.

I remember the drama and the crying and the barking of dogs when the Russians surrounded our house and told my parents that we

were under arrest and to pack up and be ready to leave at 4.30 in the morning.

It's 1940. Poland has been occupied by the German army in the West and Soviet troops in the East.

For thousands of Poles, this is the beginning of an extraordinary

and harrowing journey that would end eventually in refugee camps spread across Africa.

My name is Kazimir Schapanek and I was born in 1935. I was born in a village called

Trumalet in the province of Tarnopol and Poland which is Ukraine today.

Unfortunately my family was taken away in 1940, this was February, it was very cold, a lot of snow on the ground.

They used a sleigh to pile our whole family into the sleigh and take us to a station.

And do you remember any of the feelings you had then? I remember my

mother crying which of course distressed me very much as a young boy. My whole

family was arrested taken to Siberia.

...