A forgotten true story of war, exile, and an unlikely bond.
During the chaos that followed the First World War, a stranded Polish battalion found itself fighting in the frozen north of Russia. It was there that they acquired Baska, a young polar bear.
What began as an impulsive act soon became something far more profound. Baska lived among the soldiers of the Polish Murmansk Battalion, sharing their barracks, their routines, and their long, uncertain wait for a way home.
She marched, slept in the same bed as her trainer, learned discipline, and became-by official order-Daughter of the Regiment.
Carried from the Arctic to Poland, she becomes a symbol of endurance and survival-an animal whose life mirrors the fate of the soldiers around her-before becoming legend as the polar bear who stood on her hind legs like a human to shake hands with, then salute Marshal Józef Pilsudski in a Warsaw military parade
Based on historical sources, Baska: The Other Soldier Bear tells the remarkable true story of a polar bear who became part of a fighting unit-and of the soldiers who found, in her steady breathing, a reminder of home.
This is not the story of Wojtek the Bear. This is the story of Baska Murmanska. The bear who came before.
