American Institute of Polish Culture - Good News 2013

GOOD NEWS MIAMI, FLORIDA

The American Institute of Polish Culture

2012-2013

The everlasting spirit of Poland

The American Institute of Polish Culture, Inc. Mrs. Blanka A. Rosenstiel founded the American Institute of Polish Culture (AIPC) in 1972 as a non-profit, tax-exempt Florida Corporation. The aims of the Institute are twofold -- first, to share with Americans the rich heritage of Poland, which has contributed in so many ways to the history of the U.S., and second, to promote the scientific, educational and artistic contributions of Polish-Americans. For over forty years our endeavors have received support from our members, donors and the enthusiastic participation of other ethnic groups in the community and the friendly cooperation of the press, all of which have helped to strengthen our leading role in the cultural life of the community. We plan to continue being a catalyst in promoting knowledge about Poland and Polish-Americans nationwide. Ongoing programs include:

Board of Directors

Each year, the Harriet Irsay Scholarship, established in 1992, awards ten to fifteen talented students $1,000 grants each. All majors and areas of study are considered and many applicants are of Polish descent. AIPC has awarded $250,000 in grants to worthy students over the last two decades.

Directors Margareta de Gea Agnieszka Gray Gerald Jaski Steven Karski Janusz Kozlowski Rose Kruszewski Christopher Kurczaba Danuta Kyparisis Teresa Lowenthal Alexander Montague Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk Dr. Pat Riley Jaroslaw Rottermund Jacek Schindler Inga Luksza Senis Michael Skronski Marjorie Sonderling

In 1998, the Institute spearheaded the establishment of the Kościuszko Chair of Polish Studies at the University of Virginia, for research and education and sponsorship of visiting scholars. In 2008, the Chair moved to the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. The current Director of the Chair is Prof.

Marek Chodakiewicz, Ph.D. AIPC has sponsored dozens of lectures at educational facilities throughout the years. As a result of four decades of collaboration with Florida International University (FIU) the Blanka Rosenstiel Lecture Series on Poland was established there in Miami in 2010. Lecture themes have included globalization, art, music, politics and economics. AIPC also established the ongoing lecture series at CREES (Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies) at the University of Virginia in 2005.

The annual International Polonaise Ball serves as the main fundraiser for the Institute and is attended by guests from around the world. Each year themes explore the cultural ties between Poland and other countries, such as Spain, India, Greece, Japan, Great Britain, South America, and the Native Americans.

Gold Medals recipients have included Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwsz; Dr. Andrew Schally, Nobel Prize laureate in medicine; James Michener, author; Senator Barbara Mikulski; and Professor Norman Davies, historian.

Film: Polish film is a growing presence in international moviemaking, and AIPC helps to foster that growth in the U.S. by bringing contemporary Polish filmmakers and their work to Miami in collaboration with International Film Festivals. Many of the films have won major awards and some were screened for the first time in the U.S. Art: The Institute has long been a champion of fine and contemporary Polish and Polish-American art, and has sponsored and organized several solo and group shows. For example, our historical exhibit, Perspektywa Polska, traveled nationwide to museums, universities for over 25 years.

Publications: AIPC has translated and published many books including the five volume history of Poland, Saga of a Nation written by Pawl Jasienica and translated by Alexander Jordan, and the rare Accomplished Senator by Wawrzyniec Grzymala Goslicki (1530-1607). Our annual magazine, Good News, is distributed to all members and others, and the Institute also houses a public library with books in both Polish and English.

Officers/Directors Founder, President, Chairman and Chief Executive Blanka A. Rosenstiel Vice President Barbara Cooper Secretary and Treasurer Dr. Jerzy Kyparisis

Executive Director Beata Paszyc Committee Chairmen Fund Raising Barbara Cooper Nominating Blanka A. Rosenstiel Public Relations Marjorie Sonderling Polish Studies Chair Gerald Jaski Scholarship Jaroslaw Rottermund Special Projects Beata Paszyc Honorary Members Michael Gastom Astrid de Grabowski Edward Kruszewski Tamara McKeehan Ednagene Schofman John Sullivan Advisory Board Dr. Horacio Aguirre Hon. Maurice Ferre Mercedes Ferre Prof. Tadeusz Lapinski Dr. Tully Patrowicz

Message from the President Dear Members and Friends, It seems impossible that another year has passed and I am once again writing an open letter to you for the Good News. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I sat at my desk sharing my excitement that AIPC was celebrating it’s 4oth Anniversary, and the honor and awe I felt for of all the wonderful things that we have achieved over the past four decades? And now here I am, in the middle of the Institute’s 41st year, and I find myself reflecting on how quickly Time unfolds as we all go about our lives.

My calendar has been so full that the weeks just flew by. I attended informative meetings, participated in cultural and diplomatic events, and had the pleasure of meeting distinguished personalities, including the new Ambassador of Poland, Ryszard Schnepf, and US Vice President Joe Biden.

The American Institute of Polish Culture continues to spread the rich heritage of Poland in the US. Within the following pages you will read not only about the Institute’s cultural events, meetings and other activities but also lectures and conferences at Florida International University, The Institute of World Politics, and University of Virginia. You will see photos and an article about the festive and colorful Polish-Indian Ball last February. I am very excited about our forthcoming International Polonaise Ball dedicated to Poland and Argentina, titled in “Love with Tango,” and would love to see you at Eden Roc Hotel on February 1, 2014. This issue will also give you a glimpse into the lives of famous scientists, artists, and other extraordinary and fascinating people who all share the same commonality - a love for Poland and the pride of being Polish. I am convinced that this quality, together with their talents and gifts, spurs them to action to show the world what Poles, given an opportunity, can achieve.

I am so proud of the new generation of young Polish - Americans, including our scholarship recipients who embrace their roots and are eager to learn about Polish history, even tough most of them were born here. I am happy to be able to help them further their education through the Harriet Irsay Scholarship Program. You can read some of their excellent essays in this magazine.

My gratitude goes to our Board of Directors who continue to support the mission of the Institute, and to all of our members, generous donors, and friends whose financial support and dedication are instrumental in creating valuable and enriching programs for American society. Please encourage your friends and family to join our organization, participate in our events and help us financially to carry out this mission into the future.

Many thanks go to Beata Paszyc, Executive Director of the Institute, for her professionalism, creativity and dedication over the last 14 years. My appreciation also goes to Lynne Schaefer, Executive Assistant, for her hard work and enthusiasm.

Establishing the Institute was my dream come true - a labor of love, the source of so much joy and pleasure and, yes, many challenges. I believe that if you follow your passion with the help of “Providence” you can not only accomplish much, but give and contribute to the betterment of the society. Thank you for being part of this colorful, enriching and beautiful journey!

With appreciation and kindest regards,

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Good News 2012-2013

Credits

Contents

Editor-in-Chief & Publisher: Executive Editor: Assistant Editor: Printed By:

Lady Blanka Rosenstiel Beata Paszyc Lynne Schaefer StationAmerica, Miami, FL

Proofreading: Eileen Hall

Graphic Design: Amanda Orr

Barbara Muze Beata Paszyc

Lynne Schaefer

Front & Back Cover: Designed & photographed by Beata Paszyc

Shot at Miami Beach, FL Contributing Researchers and Writers: Father Ian Boyd; Lavinia Bucsa; Dr. Marek Chodakiewicz; Naresh Fernandes; Jadwiga Gewert; Gloria Garafulich-Grabois; Marta Gierczyk; Dr. Piotr Kosicki; Matthew Kwasiborski; Prof. Andrzej Legocki; Prof. Tadeusz Malinski; Tania C. Mastrapa; Brigit Moore; Barbara Muze; Dr. Dermot Quinn; Beata Paszyc; Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski; Dr. Thaddeus C. Radzilowski; Lady Blanka Rosenstiel; Lynne Schaefer; Pawel P. Styrna; Irene Tomaszewski; Tom Tracy; Joseph W. Zurawski All articles, including Did you know..., not given a by-line were researched and written by:

Beata Paszyc

Lynne Schaefer

Student Essays:

Paul Kmiec

Nicole Kuruszko

Ben Schultz

Photography:

Betty Alvarez Beata Paszyc

Alex Gort

Roman Kazimierczak

Sources: The following resources were used for research and photos. For a detailed list, please contact our office.

American Institute on Political and Economic Systems; Associated Press - Yahoo News; The Chopin Foundation of the United States, Inc.; cosmopolitanreview.com; Embassy of the Republic of Poland; Florida Catholic (8/1/13); Florida International University, Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence Newsletter; India Ink (The New York Times 7/29/13); Florida Guitar Foundation; The Fund for American Studies; The G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture; The Historical Marker Database; Magda Jurek; The Kosciuszko Chair of Polish Studies at The Institute of World Politics; Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Poland; Peter J. Obst; Perspectives, Ohio University (Winter 2004); Platige Image; Poland.travel; Polish Tourist Organization; The Post Eagle (5/15/13); The Sarmatian Review (Sept. 2013); School of Polish Language and Culture; The United States Holocaust Museum; University of Miami; University of Virginia Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES); What If Works, Inc.; Wikipedia Distribution:

The American Institute of Polish Culture, Inc. 1440 79th Street Causeway, Suite 117 Miami, Florida 33141 (305) 864-2349 http://www.ampolinstitute.org

Co-Sponsored By:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland The Embassy of the Republic of Poland

2013 Š The American Institute of Polish Culture, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Good News magazine is published by the American Institute of Polish Culture for educational purposes only.

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Message from the President From Solidarity to Freedom Interview with Dr. Peter Kosicki Church and State in Poland Kosciuszko Chair 2012-2013 Harriet Irsay Scholarship Breakthrough Research Board of Directors Meeting Consular Information Soccer Forever Interrogation at FIU Walter Beaman Polish Lectures at UVa Truth Finally Revealed Poland’s Cultural Heritage Insatiable Life of Hilary Koprowski Best Sky Fighters This is Your Captain Speaking May 3rd Constitution Day Noble and Compassionate Heart Save the Date 41st International Polonaise Ball Polish American Film Library Polish Students at AIPES Polish Rider by Rembrandt Ambassador of Poland in Miami Polish Language in US Today Self-Made Man of Literature Cinema: Polish Source of Survival Art Songs of Chopin A Candle Lighting the Way Philanthropist Remembered Santo Subito in Miami Chesterton and the Challenge Chopin Foundation Joyful Festivity Easter Spring Celebration Casting Off-A Solo Atlantic Voyage Students Corner Volunteers Thanks to our Donors New Members Delve into a Book AIPC Membership

From Solidarity to Freedom

By Lavinia Bucsa

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n December 4, 2012 the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence (MEUCE), in collaboration with the American Institute of Polish Culture, the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Miami, and the European Studies Program, organized a talk, as part of the Blanka Rosenstiel Polish Lecture Series, with Dr. Piotr H. Kosicki on Work and the Human Person: John Paul II, Solidarity and Social Justice. The Associate Director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Virginia, Dr. Kosicki specializes in the transnational history of 20th century Europe, focusing particularly on Poland, and on the religion, politics and the history of ideas.

Mrs. Danuta Kyparisis, Mrs. Anna Pietraszek, Mrs. Beata Paszyc, Dr. Piotr Kosicki, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Prof. Stanislaw Wnuk

In his message to the Polish people, the Pope conveyed the ideas of peaceful change, human solidarity, and of God as the only standard of conduct. His theology was centered around the theological significance of work as the only way that human beings can achieve both communion with God and dignity. As the Pope describes in one of his 1981 encyclicals, On Human Work “...work is the essential key to the social question; it is through work that people, as human beings created ‘in the image of God,’ achieve fulfillment.

People must cooperate and work together for the common good. Work creates community, and workers have the right to work, to earn living wages and to form unions to protect their interests.” These ideas expressed by the Pope informed the Solidarity movement and mobilized the Polish people.

It is this aspect of the work and influence of the Pope John Paul II that is less known by the public and which Dr. Kosicki wanted to highlight.

The program organized at FIU began with a documentary featuring rare archival materials from From Solidarity to Freedom. The film places the Polish Solidarity movement in the chronology of the 1988-89 world events and illustrates the economic and social hardships that Polish people experienced under the communist regime. To this historical perspective, Dr. Kosicki added the “Catholic element” to the conversation on the Solidarity movement as a unique national phenomenon. During an insightful presentation that took place in the second part of the program, Kosicki focused on the interconnections between the elections of Pope John Paul II as the head of the Catholic Church, his 1979 pilgrimage to Poland that “awakened the nation,” and the creation of Solidarity.

In later years, Pope John Paul II was poised to relate the Catholicism in Poland to Catholicism in the world, and thus to move beyond the Polish and European borders by promoting a universal set of values, among which the notion of social justice in the world was of utmost importance. Solidarity was an opportunity for the Pope to start thinking about what comes after communism. The presentation then led to a lively discussion during the question and answers segment that concluded this memorable program.

How did the connections between the Pope and the Solidarity movement emerge? Dr. Kosicki suggested that one think of Pope John Paul II as not only as a symbol, but also as a very concrete person whose ideas inspired and mobilized the movement, and who believed that the Polish experience and the Solidarity ideals would serve as a lesson for the rest of the world.

Pope John Paul II first pilgrimage to Poland in 1979

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Interview with Dr. Piotr H. Kosicki

By Lavinia Bucsa made him think beyond Europe. Pope John Paul II wanted Europe to be a part of a larger world, and it is important for us to understand what kind of relationship he was seeking to form between the regions of the world - exactly the way that Solidarity demonstrated to us.

MEUCE: Can you talk about your major research interests and ongoing projects?

Dr. KOSICKI: I am finishing a book manuscript based on my Ph.D. thesis that tells the story of how the Catholic Church understood the “social question” and how this idea was transformed between 1891 - when the Catholic Church had a serious talk about the need for Catholic social teaching - and 1991, the year that celebrated the Centennial of the Encyclicals and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

MEUCE: How do you see the role of the intellectual dissidents in both Poland and in other communist countries from Eastern Europe, in terms of similarities or specific differences?

Dr. KOSICKI: All of the other communist bloc countries had very bright exile communities. By contrast, a lot of dissident Poles stayed in Poland. True, some Poles went into exile but the fact that many stayed in the country provided for a unique kind of cooperation between these groups, which was very difficult to achieve elsewhere. If you only have exile communities it is easy for the regime to portray them as “counter-revolutionary,” or on the American payroll, or whatever the communist regime wanted to say about them.

But when a real tie exists between people from inside the country and those in exile, there are different consequences.

I am interested in Poland in a broader perspective. I look at the question of what being in contact and creating active partnerships with organizations across the Iron Curtain meant in terms of Catholics being able to respond effectively to communist campaigns. As I mentioned during my lecture today, the Pope’s response to the social question was inspired in part by a close reading and study of Marxism, but his ideas were deeply Catholic and anti-materialist. These ideas of work and the human person are at the very center of my book. Other ongoing projects include a co-edited book on the revolutions of 1989 as a global history, and a second book project on what I call “blank spots” - an historical narrative of Central and Eastern Europe. By “blank spots” I refer to important historical narratives that were either revised or entirely suppressed, and what the consequences of that suppression have been since 1989.

Dr. Piotr H. Kosicki specializes in the transnational history of 20th-century Europe, focusing primarily on Poland and religion, politics and the history of ideas.

The recipient of a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University, Dr. Kosicki is currently preparing a book entitled, Europe Between Catechism and Revolution: Catholicism, Poland and the Social Question, 1891-1991.

His research includes the thought and Dr. Piotr Kosicki politics of Pope John Paul II and the European Christian Democracy. Of particular interest is the historical memory of mass violence, especially as it pertains to Polish-German and Polish-Russian relations, and the revolutions of 1989 in the global perspective. Dr. Kosicki has held a Fulbright Fellowship and a Chateaubriand Fellowship, and has published an edited volume and dozens of articles in five languages.

MEUCE: What is the most overlooked aspect in the public perception of the role and work of Pope John Paul II? Dr. KOSICKI: I think the temptation in talking about Pope John Paul II is most often to highlight his symbolic significance or his almost mythical role. I understand that and I believe, in some ways, that it is important to highlight the symbol that he constituted. That being said, there are very real things that the Pope did and very real ideas that he spread, both with tangible consequences. From my standpoint, one of the most important things about European and Polish history that does not get a lot of attention, is the fact that even communist Poland, in the space that opened up for Solidarity and the workers ended up taking, can be used as an example for the rest of the world. It is important, in other words, to think about the lessons that Polish cases can offer to the world.

By the same token, it is important to think about Pope John Paul II not only in terms of his relationship with the Solidarity movement, but also to think about how the lessons he took from Polish examples allowed him to conduct the rest of his Papacy. Europe was always at the center of his interests throughout his life; however, the Polish experience

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Church and State in Poland

By Lavinia Bucsa

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Dr. Grzymala-Busse: I think the U.S. is different from Europe in two respects. First, there is a more structured division between state and Church in the U.S than there is in Europe.

Second, and related to the first, there is a religious marketplace in the U.S that does not exist in Europe. To illustrate - in the U.S., if you have enough adherents, you can call yourself a religion, and people flow pretty freely from one religion to another. There is nothing strange about converting to different religions because one does not really lose one’s identity.

This is especially the case among Protestants who can very freely move from one religion to another so that it reflects their own world views and personal preferences. In Europe, by contrast, it is much harder to switch religions; a lot of times religion is associated with national identity and there are numerous cases where the state sponsors the official Church. Taxpayers’ money, whether they like it or not, will go to support the Church. There is much division between the support of the State for the Churches and a much greater religion marketplace, which means that religions are allowed to function much more freely in the U.S. They can also make all kinds of demands, some of which are met, some of which are not, whereas in Europe that relationship is much more constrained by the legal and political considerations.

n January 22, 2013, Dr. Anna Grzymala-Busse from the University of Michigan, made a presentation entitled “Church and State in Poland,” as part of the Lady Blanka Rosenstiel Lecture Series on Poland at FIU. I had a chance to interview Dr. Grzymala-Busse.

MEUCE: You pointed out during your presentation that religiosity is a question of historical context, and that the relationship between Church and state has been (is) a conflicted one. In your view, what role, if any, did the regime type play in shaping the relationship between the Church and State throughout Eastern Europe? I am also thinking of the other non-Catholic, but nonetheless Orthodox, countries such as Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania?

Dr. Grzymala-Busse: The relationship between the Church and state, both in Catholic and non-Catholic countries, was definitely more hostile during the communist period and less so afterward. But fundamentally I think it is shaped by the historical relationship between religion and the state, rather than between religion and the regime type. The RomanCatholic Church has always been seen as most popular and most respected when it stayed out of politics. The Orthodox Church has always been allied with the state and has always been part of the government structure. These fundamentals have not changed. They might have been intensified under communism, but they have not really changed the fundamental relationship.

MEUCE: In the present context of the European Union, how do you see the evolution of Church-state relations both in Poland and, more broadly, throughout the newest members of the Union?

Dr. Grzymala-Busse: I think that there could be two different reactions. On one hand, if the EU is perceived to be threatening national identity and national interest, then there could be a tightening of the bond between society and Church.

If, on the other hand, society or large groups in society feel that their interests are better represented in a secular, more cosmopolitan EU, then the bond between the Church and society will loosen. Therefore, a lot has to do with how the relations of the EU to the national interest of these countries is perceived by these societies.

Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Stanisław Glemp, General Wojciech Jaruzelski

MEUCE: Will this have an impact on religion’s ability to shape policy?

Dr. Grzymala-Busse: It might, in the sense that in the U.S. churches are perceived as legitimate interest groups who can lobby for policy issues, whereas in Europe they have to work through different channels in order to get their policy aims accomplished.

MEUCE: Religion and politics can be a volatile combination, as you mentioned. What are the major differences between the way religion and politics interact in the U.S. and in Europe?

MEUCE: You are a renowned and a well respected scholar.

What is next on your research agenda?

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Dr. Grzymala-Busse: Well, currently I am finishing up a new book on religion and politics in Europe and beyond. My next project is going to be about the importance of historical and geographical boundaries and how their shift does, or does not, have an impact on domestic politics. I am thinking of several cases where national boundaries in Europe have shifted but political behavior (voting and organizational patterns, for example) is nonetheless maintained

as if those boundaries had not shifted. I am interested in seeing why that is so.

MEUCE: I have one final question - when should we expect its publication?

Dr. Grzymala-Busse: Hopefully next year (laughing)! We’ll see how quickly I can work!

Dr. Anna Grzymala-Busse earned her Ph.D. at Harvard and then taught at Yale before becoming the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. She focuses on religion and politics, informal politics and post-communist state development. In 2002, her first book, Redeeming the Communist Past: The Regeneration of Communist Parties in East Central Europe, examined how some discredited ruling communist parties reinvented themselves as successful democracies.

Her second book published in 2007, Rebuilding Leviathan: Party Competition and State Exploitation in Post-Communist Democracies, provided surprising answers of postcommunist state reconstruction to the fundamental question of why such opportunistic democracies limit their corruption and abuse of state resources when faced with strong political competition. Dr. Grzymala-Busse is a highly sought-after lecturer and presenter, chairs several educational committees, and is the author of numerous articles.

Dr. Anna Grzymala-Busse, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel

Holocaust: A Living Journey

When the Nazis occupied Poland, he defied strict bans on teaching and continued to do so in secret, eventually being arrested by the Gestapo for his “crimes.” He spent three years in various deaths camps before his release in 1945.

On June 3, 2103, What If Works, Inc. and the Gablestage at the Biltmore presented an original stage production entitled, Holocaust: A Living Journey Book in Coral Gables, South Florida. The play was a moving tribute to eight survivors of the Nazi death camps, presenting their stories through monologues, dance and song, while backdrops in stark black and white film depicted the poetry of Nobel Prize winner Nelly Sachs and archival photos of the Holocaust. Essentially a docudrama, this production owes its success to the collaboration of a very able and talented cast comprised of students from Florida International University’s Department of Theatre under the direction of Professor Phillip Church. The students not only wrote their own monologues and developed each character, they also designed the staging, sets and content of the production.

Lynne Schaefer, Executive Assistant of AIPC, attended this special performance and delivered a short speech on behalf of Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, in which she stressed that 3 million Polish Christians were killed during WWII.

The oldest survivor of the Auschwitz camp (dying at age 108 in 2012 when this play was conceived) was Polish teacher, Antoni Dobrowolski, who dedicated his life to education.

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Kosciuszko Chair in 2012-2013

By Dr. Marek Chodakiewicz and Paweł P. Styrna Introduction The academic year 2012-2013 has been a very successful and eventful one both for the Institute of World Politics (IWP) in general, and the Kościuszko Chair of Polish Studies (KC) in particular.

As always, we would like to thank and recognize all the benefactors, friends, staff, and interns who make possible the KC at IWP through their generous funding and hard work. We are most grateful to Lady Blanka Rosenstiel and the American Institute of Polish Culture, the Tadeusz Ungar Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Zenon Woś, the Hon. Aldona Woś, Mr. Adam Bąk, Mrs. Ava Polansky-Bąk, Mr. John Niemczyk, Dr. Janusz Subczyński, Mr. and Mrs. Iwo Pogonowski, Mr. and Mrs. Władysław Poncet de la Riviere, the Polish American Veterans’ Association (PAVA)—in particular Mr. Antoni Chróścielewski, Dr. Teofil Lachowicz, and Mr. Christopher Olechowski—as well as many others. Without you, the Chair cannot accomplish its noble mission of spreading appreciation for and understanding of the rich history and culture of Poland and the Intermarium.

During the past year we have published a plethora of books and articles, hosted many lectures, and welcomed numerous guests.

Publications and Media Activism In October 2012, the holder of the KC, Prof. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz published a ground-breaking book on the territory between ethnic Poland and Russia entitled Intermarium: The Land between the Black and Baltic Seas (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2012). He focuses on the Intermarium for several reasons. Most importantly, because as the inheritor of the freedom and rights stemming from the legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian/Ruthenian Commonwealth, it is culturally and ideologically compatible with American national interests. It is also a gateway to both East and West. Since the Intermarium is the most stable part of the post-Soviet area, Chodakiewicz argues that the United States should focus on solidifying its influence there. The ongoing political and economic success of the Intermarium undermines the totalitarian enemies of freedom all over the world. As such, the area can act as a springboard to lift up the rest of the successor states, including those in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Russian Federation.

Intermarium has operated successfully for several centuries. It is the most inclusive political concept within the framework of the Commonwealth. By reintroducing the concept of the Intermarium into intellectual discourse, the author highlights the autonomous and independent nature of the area. This is a brilliant and innovative addition to European Studies and World Culture.

In addition, Dr. Chodakiewicz also republished two of his books: 7

Dr. Marek Chodakiewicz

His monograph on Jedwabne was translated into Polish as Mord w Jedwabnem: 10 lipca 1941: Prolog, przebieg, pokłosie [The Massacre in Jedwabne: July 10, 1941: Before, During, and After] by Wingert Publishers (Kraków, 2012).

His classic textbook on the history of modern ideologies, O prawicy i lewicy [On the Right and the Left], was also republished in Poland, which clears up many common misconceptions about political labels, such as socialism, fascism, Nazism, communism, liberalism, conservatism, and nationalism, which many readily utilize but few really understand.

Dr. Chodakiewicz reviewed several books and wrote many articles—both scholarly and popular—and continues writing his regular columns for Najwyższy CZAS! and Tygodnik Solidarność (Solidarity’s flagship weekly). He also pens analyses for the internet hub Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research (SFPPR: www.sfppr.org). The topics addressed by Dr. Chodakiewicz include the fate of decommunization in the Czech Republic, the future of Mali, Chinese grand strategy, smart policy towards Iran, and the governing philosophy of Putinist Russia. A complete listing of these publications may be viewed on the IWP website (www.iwp.edu) under Prof. Chodakiewicz’s faculty profile.

Good News 2012-2013

The KC’s Paweł P. Styrna is also a regular contributor to the SFPPR News & Analysis Section, writing on issues related to Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and the Smolensk Plane Crash.

In addition to being a trained sociologist and the publisher of an influential conservative-libertarian weekly, Dr. Tomasz Sommer is also the author of the first monograph on the “Polish Operation” of the NKVD (the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, i.e. Stalin’s secret police), entitled Rozstrzelać Polaków: Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim w latach 1937-1938: Dokumenty z Centralii [Shoot the Poles: The Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union in 1937-1938: Documents from the Center] (Warsaw: 3S Media, 2010), and a recognized authority on the subject. The NKVD’s “Polish Operation” was an ethnic cleansing campaign claiming the lives of as many as 250,000 ethnic Poles in the Soviet Union in 1937-1938. This number constituted a substantial portion of the Bolshevik Empire’s Polish population.

In fact, as an ethnic category, Soviet Poles were percentagewise the greatest victim group during Stalin’s Great Purge.

Also, the “Polish Operation” was the first instance in which the Soviets killed their victims based only on an ethnic criterion. Simultaneously, the NKVD was also carrying out the bloody anti-Kulak Operation. Dr. Sommer, who researched the impact of both operations in the Minsk Oblast (District) of the Belarusian SSR, noted that the anti-Polish operation was far more destructive than the anti-kulak one in the district (land owning peasants were deemed kulak). The NKVD massacred and repressed the local Poles, in spite of the fact that many attempted to pass themselves off as “Belarusians” to survive. The ethnic-based brutality of the “Polish Operation” demonstrates the degree to which Moscow wished to eradicate the last remnants of the legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the region.

Finally, Dr. Chodakiewicz has granted several interviews to American and Polish media outlets, such as Poland’s TVP station as well as Radio WNET and the American “Exceptional Conservative” radio show.

Lectures On September 22, 2012, we hosted the Annual Kościuszko Chair Military Lecture, during which Mr. Charles Van Someren of IWP delivered a presentation entitled From an Inland Sea: The Polish Navy and its Global Challenges, 1918-Today.

The speaker was introduced by Prof. Chodakiewicz, who provided the broader historical background.

The Fifth Annual Kościuszko Chair Conference On November 3, 2012, KC hosted the Fifth Annual Kościuszko Chair Conference dedicated to topics in Central and Eastern European culture, history, and current affairs. This year, the conference consisted of six lectures: The Emergence of a German-Dominated Europe: Economic and Political Implications for Poland - Prof. Casimir Dadak (Hollins University) Dr. Dadak, Professor of Economics at Hollins University, pointed out that the Euro Zone fails to meet the conditions of an “optimum currency area.” The economies and standards of living of the European Union’s many member-states are simply too diverse. The reasons commonly offered for the Euro Zone crisis are overspending, excessive debt, and rigid labor markets. Prof. Dadak, however, argues that these explanations miss the point. The Spaniards had cut spending and debt while liberalizing their labor market, but this did not save them from their present predicament. The Germans, on the other hand, maintained high spending and debt levels while conserving inflexible labor relations. Further, Germany has benefited from the Euro crisis. Berlin’s role in Europe is on the rise and no decisions are ever made in the Euro Area against its wishes. The great chasm between the economies of Germany and Poland—particularly in terms of the standard of living and purchasing power—means that Warsaw should avoid joining the Berlin-dominated Euro Zone, argued Prof. Dadak. Surrendering her own sovereign currency would deprive Poland of key instruments to shape an economic policy favoring her own interests. Instead of accepting the Euro, Poland would be better advised, he continued, by decommunizing, cutting bureaucracy, and investing in infrastructure. Poland’s potential is great, but it has yet to be unleashed.

English-Speaking POW Witnesses to Katyń - The Coded Letters - Ms. Krystyna Piórkowska (Museum of the Polish Military, Warsaw) Ms. Piórkowska is a researcher formerly affiliated with the Museum of the Polish Military (Muzeum Wojska Polskiego) in Warsaw, Poland, and the author of the book EnglishSpeaking Witnesses to Katyń: Recent Research (Warsaw: Muzeum Katyńskie and Muzeum Wojska Polskiego, 2012).

The Polish Operation of the NKVD - Dr. Tomasz Sommer (Institute of Globalization, Poland)

Good News 2012-2013

Dr. Łucja Świątkowska-Cannon

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Her lecture was preceded by brief introductory remarks by Lt. Gen. Edward Rowny—America’s chief negotiator during the arms reduction talks with the Soviets and ambassador to the START I talks—who recalled orders he had received in 1951, while fighting the communists in Korea, to remain silent on the Soviet role in Katyń. Ms. Piórkowska’s presentation clarified this seemingly mysterious policy. The Englishspeaking POWs, including Americans, had been compelled by the Germans to travel to the excavated killing field in Katyń as witnesses. One of the U.S. officers, Lt. Col. Van Vliet, sent a coded message to Washington, conveying his conviction that the Soviets were to blame. Roosevelt and his administration were aware of this, but covered up the truth to appease their Soviet ally in the war against Germany. By the time of the Madden Committee in 1951-1952 (chaired

by Rep. Ray Madden), the Van Vliet Report had disappeared and the congressional body, concluding that the Soviets had massacred the Poles, feared exposing FDR’s indifference for political reasons. Ms. Piórkowska also mentioned the story of Harrison Salisbury—the Pulitzer-Prize-winning liberal journalist and the New York Times Moscow bureau chief from 1949-1954 was also sent to Katyń as a “witness,” albeit on a Moscow-sponsored mission. The genocidal massacre of Polish officers did not make a great impression on Salisbury, who was much more concerned with the quality of the cabbage and sour cream in the borshch the Soviets served him on the train. Thus, the entire truth about Katyń was an inconvenience for many on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Dr. Piotr Naimski

West that the Germans were exterminating the Jews) shows that there is still much work to be done.

Polish Catholic Priests in German Concentration Camps Ms. Agnieszka Gerwel (Princeton University) Ms. Gerwel noted that the German Nazis are often erroneously depicted as a conservative and Christian movement.

In fact, the National Socialists were deeply anti-Christian, just as their totalitarian and revolutionary twins, the Communists. Viewing Christianity as a “Jewish plot” to “weaken” the Aryan race, they reserved particular ire for Catholicism, especially Polish Catholicism, as showed by the fate of Polish and other Catholic priests in the first German concentration camp of Dachau. One of the prisoners was Ms. Gerwel’s relative, Father Antoni Gerwel, who perished in the camp in August 1942. She demonstrated that Polish clergymen formed the largest contingent of Dachau inmates (1,780), followed

by Germans (447), and then Frenchmen (156). The men of the cloth were imprisoned together and were treated as brutally as any other political prisoners. In 1940-1941, following an intervention by the Vatican, they were allowed to celebrate mass, but, as of October 1941, the Polish priests were deprived even of this concession. As a matter of fact, the German National Socialists killed more Polish Catholic priests than even the Soviets.

“Polish Concentration Camps:” Cultural Prejudice in the U.S. - Ms. Paulina Migalska The infamous canard—“Polish concentration camps,” the topic of Ms. Migalska’s MA thesis defended at the Jagiellonian University in Poland has been perpetuated by the mainstream media for many years. This unfortunate term originates in the claim that Poles collaborated with the German Nazis and helped to plunder and kill Jews during the Holocaust. This Soviet-spun myth evolved into the centerpiece of post-modernist pseudo-scholarship about the Shoah in Poland which has, in turn, dictated the popular perception of Polish-Jewish relations. The paradigm of Polish “collusion” with the Nazis against the Jews eventually generated such a gross distortion of history as the phrase “Polish concentration camps.” Obviously, the Poles not only did not establish or man the German concentration and death camps in their occupied country, but were incarcerated and killed within them as well. Hence, as Ms. Migalska pointed out, most Poles are deeply offended by the great historic ignorance encapsulated in the canard. After years of protesting, the Polish-American community eventually succeeded in bringing some public attention to the matter and correcting the journalistic rule book. Even so, President Obama’s “Polish death camp” remark uttered in May 2012 during, of all circumstances, a ceremony post humously awarding the Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski (the legendary Polish courier who warned the

The Wellisz Family: Poland’s Free Market Pioneers - Mr. Paweł Styrna (IWP, SFPPR) During his presentation, Mr. Styrna explained that the Wellisz family’s story is a great lacuna or gap in Polish history, in spite of the family’s contributions. Wilhelm Wellisz moved to Russian-ruled Poland in the late nineteenth century from Austria and built a business empire. His son and heir, Leopold Wellisz, expanded his father’s work and labored to 9

Good News 2012-2013

accomplish his objective: the building of a viable, self -sufficient arms industry in resurrected Poland following the First World War. Given his assistance to his workers, none of his factories ever went on strike in spite of the difficult economic times. Mr. Styrna argued that Leopold Wellisz could have achieved more in the interwar period had it not been for obstructionist measures by the state.

elite—continues to view the United States as its main enemy. As Putin’s regime seeks to reassert control over the former Soviet Empire, it simultaneously attempts to push the Americans out of Europe and to halt NATO expansion into the “near abroad.” In all of this, Moscow has been abetted by Germany, France, and Italy, who have assisted its military build-up.

Since the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 forced Wellisz to leave Poland, he accepted a New-York-based position advising the Polish Ministry of Finance in 1941, despite comfortable arrangements in Switzerland. In the U.S., he struggled to obtain American assistance for the postwar reconstruction of Poland and combated anti-Polish propaganda of Soviet or German origin. Public service meant that Leopold Wellisz had to forego much more lucrative work in the private sector, but his faith and patriotism had always motivated him to labor for the common good. As a veritable polymath, he also focused on literary history and wrote works on the connections between famous Polish writers and Western literati, thereby hoping to emphasize that Polish culture was an intrinsic part of Western Civilization. In addition he also discovered the works of the Polish poet Cyprian Norwid. Yet, in spite of this fascinating history, the Wellisz family remains virtually unknown, much to the detriment of Poles awakening from decades of totalitarian slavery.

Mr. Christopher Olechowski read a short literary piece he had written, entitled Rummaging Through the Rubble of Yalta.

The story expressed the bitterness and disappointment that many post-Second-World-War Polish immigrants to the United States felt toward the betrayal at the Yalta Conference.

The Polish economy was the subject of the lecture by Dr. Łucja Świątkowska-Cannon, an economist and expert on Poland’s post-communist transformation. She pointed out that while Poland has made great strides economically since the fall of communism, there are still significant structural problems undermining the course of her development. On the one hand, Poland has so far managed to weather the storm that is the current global economic downturn and has attracted substantial foreign investment since 1990. On the other hand, the postcommunist country performs quite poorly in terms of competitiveness. For stronger and healthier economic development in the future, the Polish government must grapple with such stifling factors as bureaucracy, regulations, and corruption.

The KC Annual Spring Symposium

Dr. Piotr Naimski, in turn, analyzed Poland’s energy security. He highlighted the importance of energy resources—natural gas in particular—in Eurasian politics. Post-Soviet Russia has been especially aggressive in using “pipeline diplomacy” to further its grand strategy (see the lecture by Prof. Andrzej Nowak). This includes pipeline projects such as North Stream and South Stream, which circumvent transit nations like Poland and Ukraine. Poland, however, must not allow Russia to render her even more dependent on Russian natural gas than she already is. On the contrary, Warsaw ought to pursue a policy of energy diversification and independence. Alternative sources of energy— which include, but need not be limited to, shale gas and coal gasification—will translate into a bright future for Poland if pursued with vigor.

The KC Third Annual Spring Symposium took place on April 6, 2013. The event’s central motif was geopolitical--“Between Russia and Germany: Poland and the Future.”

The conference was moderated by Prof. Sebastian Gorka and dedicated to the memory of IWP supporter and KC donor, the late Richard (Zdzisław) Zakrzewski (1919-2013).

Our first speaker was IWP Professor of Defense Studies, Brig.

Gen. Walter Jajko (USAF Ret.), who analyzed the current deplorable state of the American-Polish alliance within NATO. According to the General, the United States under Obama has been an unreliable partner which views not only Poland, but all of Central and Eastern Europe between Germany and Russia, as expendable. This lack of interest in the region is a simple function of the administration’s drive to placate Russia. Gen. Jajko offered solutions to remedy this state of affairs and urged that they be implemented before it becomes too late.

Last but not least, Mr. Krzysztof Zawitkowski discussed the state of the Polish military and arms industry. He brought attention to the close ties between Russia and Germany, which pose a Rapallo-like threat to a Poland which is militarily relatively weak. (The Rapallo Treaty, a collaborative agreement signed between Germany and Russia in 1922, strengthened the positions of both countries to Poland’s detriment.)

Mr. Zawitkowski also pointed out that this situation has

Prof. Andrzej Nowak, a renowned Russian expert at Poland’s prestigious Jagiellonian University, focused on post-Soviet Russia’s military doctrine. He pointed out that, just as during the Cold War, the Kremlin—which is governed by the KGB Good News 2012-2013

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deteriorated after the suspicious Smolensk Plane Crash of April 2010, when the executives in charge of Poland’s arms industry were replaced. Given the country’s history of invasions by neighboring powers and betrayals by “allies,” the Central European nation requires a more realistic approach to its own security.

KC wishes to thank the Polish American Foundation for Economic Research and Education (PAFERE) and its founder and honorary president, Mr. Jan Małek, as well as the Bąk Family Foundation and the Tadeusz Ungar Foundation, for making this conference a great success.

The KC is currently preparing an anthology composed of the presentations delivered during the Spring Symposium for publication.

The Intermarium Lecture Series In 2012-2013, Prof. Chodakiewicz continued his lecture series on the Intermarium region, i.e. Central and Eastern Europe between the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic Seas.

Mr. Krzysztof Zawitkowski

Republic, where he promoted his latest book, O lewicy i prawicy [On the Left and the Right](Gdańsk: Patria Media, 2013). He spoke at such venues as Jagiellonian University, the Warsaw Book Fair, the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in Prague, the Institute of National Memory (IPN), and the network of clubs supporting the independent weekly Gazeta Polska.

The topics of the lectures, delivered by Prof. Chodakiewicz unless otherwise specified, were conversations about Hungary today (Anna Stumpf, Embassy of Hungary), Belarus after the elections (Count Aleksander Pruszyński), Armenia: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Ms. Anna Akopyan, IWP student), the Intermarium and Robert Kaplan’s Revenge of Geography, Hungary’s Christian nationalist past, present, and future, Yalta 2 and Stalin’s Secret Agents, the Smolensk Plane Crash (Paweł Styrna, KC Assistant), Applebaum, Hetherington, Kunicki, the National Archives and the Madden Committee working files (Ms. Krystyna Piórkowska, Katyń researcher), the petro-politics of Azerbaijan (Vilen Khlgatyan, IWP student), the Czech Republic (Mr. Matej Jungwirth, KC intern from the Czech Republic), Belarussian nationalism and the Polish wartime and post-wartime experience.

Guests at IWP This year, in addition to the list of distinguished guest speakers mentioned previously, Dr. Chodakiewicz met with several KC guests - Mrs. Wanda Urbańska of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation, Dr. Adam Burakowski, a Polish scholar of Romania under communism, Mr. Tomasz Szatkowski, an expert on national security and an advisor to the legal commission for defense matters of the European Parliament, Mr. Ralph J. Galliano, the director of the News & Analysis Section of the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research (SFPPR), and Prof. Andrzej Kaźmierczak of the National Bank of Poland.

Prof. Chodakiewicz had numerous speaking engagements throughout the United States and Poland. The diverse topics he discussed included, but were not limited to, comparative civilizations, the future of the West, Poland and the Intermarium, Christianity and the welfare state, Polish engineers as builders of the Second Polish Republic, and the duties of elites in the era of mass politics.

As the academic year 2013-2014 approaches, KC prepares to host its Annual Military Lecture on September 27, 2013 and the Sixth Annual KC Conference in November 2013. We are also conducting numerous research projects and look forward to other events and publications which will further our mission. Once again, we wish to thank everyone who makes our endeavors and achievements possible.

Lastly, he embarked upon a lecture circuit in May-June 2013 in Poland, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Czech

For more information about the Institute of World Politics, the Kościuszko Chair of Polish Studies, publications and opportunities to donate, please visit their website at www.iwp.edu 11

Good News 2012-2013

Harriet Irsay Scholarship “I wanted to give something to people of Polish descent, so they would be able to improve themselves through education. We should help our own people, just like other nations help their students.”

- Harriet Irsay

About Harriet Irsay

Scholarship History

Since 1992, the Scholarship Committee of the American Institute of Polish Culture has awarded scholarships to over 200 talented American students of Polish descent.

Within the last few years, the Institute broadened the scope of majors and other requirements with the intent of reaching a larger population of students.

Mrs. Harriet Irsay, born Jadwiga Pogorzelski, was a member of the American Institute of Polish Culture in Miami, Florida, since its inception in 1972. Soon after that, she joined the Board of Directors where she remained until 2008. In 1992, she established the Harriet Irsay Scholarship Fund as part of the Institute’s ongoing efforts to foster education and culture in America. Irsay, whose family owned the Indianapolis Colts since the 1970’s, funded many charitable causes. This scholarship is a tribute to her Polish roots.

We hope our readers will spread the word about the Scholarship and will continue to support the fund by making financial contributions. Pledges are invaluable in assisting the new generation of Polish-American students.

All donations are fully tax deductible.

The Harriet Irsay Scholarship Fund awards a scholarship to American students, preferably of Polish heritage, who wish to continue their education after high school and through college. With an eye toward the future and the distribution of information regarding Polish culture, history and people, the grants are given to students from a variety of majors and academic disciplines. Since the launch of the program, over $260,000 have been awarded to students from all over the country.

For the academic year 2012/13, AIPC awarded 11 scholarship grants valued at $1,000 each. Recipients were asked to write an article on a Polish-related subject for publication in Good News. You will find a few of these articles in this magazine. Once again, we congratulate all the winners and wish them well in their future educational endeavors.

“The secret in

Mrs. Isray passed away in July 2008, but her legacy remains with the contributions she made of over a quarter million dollars. She is greatly missed and remembered for her generosity.

•

education lies in respecting the student.

”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Please help shape the future of students, preferably of Polish descent, by making contributions to the Harriet Irsay Scholarship Fund. Additionally, we are always looking to establish new scholarships. Please let us know if you are interested in starting a fund in your name at the Institute.

If you would like to be part of the scholarship committee who dedicates its time to reviewing applications and selecting the most worthy students, please contact the AIPC for more information.

To contribute to the Scholarship Fund, please see the Contribution Form at the back of this publication.

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Scholarship Recipients Academic year 2012 – 2013

Piotr Filochowski Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, PA Study: Violin

Marta Gorecka St. Petersburg College, St. Petersburg, FL Study: Communication

Michelle Jaremko University of Miami, Miami, FL Study: Biology & Pre-Med

Paul Kmiec SUNY Purchase, Purchase, NY Study: Filmmaking

Nicole Kuruszko Drew University, Madison, NJ Study: Political Science & German

Emily Leven University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA Study: Criminology

Sonya Matejko University of Florida, Gainesville, FL Study: Advertising

Maurice Maultz New York University New York, NY Study: Film & Television

Benjamin Schultz University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI Study: Musical Arts - Vocal

Anna Urbaniak Appalachian State University, Boone, NC Study: Clinical Health Psychology

Kathryn Zabinski Univ of South Carolina, Columbia, SC Study: Science & Biology

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Scholarship Requirements Fields:

Required materials:

• • • • • • • • • • •

Communication Education Film Music History International Relations Journalism Liberal Arts Polish Studies Public Relations Graduate students in business programs whose thesis is directly related to Poland • Graduate students in all majors whose thesis is on a Polish subject • Scholarships are awarded on a merit basis to full time undergraduates or graduates who are American citizens or permanent residents, pref erably of Polish heritage • Must be attending a school located in the United States

• Completed application • Original school transcript(s) sent directly from the school • Detailed resume or CV • An essay “Why I Should Receive the Scholarship” (200-400 words) • An original article written by the applicant on any subject about Poland (up to 700 words) • Three original recommendation letters from teachers or others who are familiar with the academic background and the applicant’s plans for the future. These letters must be originals on letterhead stationery, signed and mailed by the faculty directly to the Institute. No copies, faxes or unsigned letters will be accepted • $10.00 check or money order made out the American Institute of Polish Culture as a nonrefundable processing fee

•

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Mahatma Gandhi

ALL REQUIRED MATERIALS MUST BE IN OUR OFFICES NO LATER THAN JUNE 28TH EACH YEAR NO EXCEPTIONS PLEASE The decision will be made by August 9th each year. All applicants will be notified by mail of their status as soon as possible after that date. If you have any questions, please contact our office at 305-864-2349 or write to assistant@ampolinstitute.org.

Scholarship applications may be obtained by downloading them from our website at www.ampolinstitute.org or by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope with a request to: Scholarship Applications The American Institute of Polish Culture 1440 79th Street Causeway, Suite 117 Miami, FL 33141-3555

Please note that you may apply yearly if you are still in school; however, we can only award a student twice.

Good News 2012-2013

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Breakthrough Research

By Beata Paszyc

F

rom the bird’s eye view the landscape looked like the vast fields and green forests of Poland, yet we were landing in Columbus, Ohio. Professor Tadeusz Malinski, a two time runner – up for the Nobel Prize, invited my father, Stefan Paszyc, to visit his research laboratories at the Ohio University in Athens. Both gentlemen were awarded a Special Recognition by AIPC in 2008, and both are chemists who have worked at universities in Poland and other countries.

Professor Malinski greeted us at the airport dressed in an elegant suit and his signature bow tie. He is a distinguished Professor who has spent more then 25 years studying nitric oxide, a molecule with the potential to improve, prevent and treat debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancer, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), Parkinson’s, epilepsy and migraines.

Prof. Tadeusz Malinski

Harvard, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Zurich.

After the tour of the lab and meet...we have been Nitric oxide is a tiny molecule that breaks down ing several of the researchers and seconds after it is produced, so it is virtually impos- involved in scientists, we sat down in Dr. Masible to see how it works. But it seems nothing is research that has led us linski’s office for a while. He told impossible for Malinski. In 1992 he published an to several us about another way that nitric article in the prestigious journal Nature in which oxide can be of immense help in he described a nanosensor (diameter about 700 medicine - wound healing. He times smaller than a single hair) his lab had desaid, “We are able to heal wounds veloped that could measure the nitric oxide re60% faster today thanks to my new leased from a single cell or neuron by detecting That does not method of medical intervention an electrical signal generated by a molecule. This happen in science that can be applied to wounds and was a real breakthrough in that it allowed scienburns to boost production of nitric very often. tists to observe the process that occurs in a single oxide. It can be as simple as applycell in real time, obviously making a direct impact ing a special bandage on a wound. on medicine in being able to track the moment-by-moment changThis could shorten hospital stays, decrease the chance es to a cell. Malinski opened up a new way of using nanotechnolof infection in cases of diabetics and other patients ogy and nanomedicine and his peers consider him one of the most with pre-existing conditions that impede healing, and productive researchers in the field. could ultimately save limbs and lives.”

fundamental

discoveries.

If all of this sounds a little like a science fiction story, rest assured it is very real. Ohio University in Athens agreed to build “Malinski’s Laboratory” (as they call it) to his specifications. Experiments with medical nanodevices and nanosensors - about – 0.000 000 020 meters - are used to monitor electrical signals in the trillionth (0.000 000 000 001) and quadrillionths of an amp. The lab has ultraheavy tables that rest on pneumatic supports and sand to neutralize even the smallest vibration, and the experiments are conducted in areas that are extremely clean, since even dust can interfere and ruin an experiment. During the tour, we witnessed an experiment on an anesthetized rat with an induced migraine that a researcher was monitoring, measuring cell responses and treating the migraine accordingly. The lab often performs many projects with other prestigious research and medical schools, such as Columbia University,

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Dr. Malinski talks about this research and work with true passion and enthusiasm. He has the ability to capture his audience with stories of his experiments and techniques so that even those who do not have a scientific mind can fully grasp what can sometimes be rather esoteric concepts. He is able to talk about it so you understand it all. He was first to discover the vital role of nitric oxide produced in each beat of the heart, the pivotal role of nitric oxide in cardiac memory, and developed a new method of heart preservation for transplantation.

But there is much more to Tadeusz then his breakthrough research, 300 plus publications, accolades

Good News 2012-2013

of paintings for many museums, art galleries and auction houses around the world. He says, “The whole process relaxes me.”

Such is Dr. Malinski’s love of art that a contest, “10 - 9 Nano-Art,” was organized in honor of him by the Galerie Roi Doré in Paris. The challenge was to create a piece of art inspired by Malinski’s scientific achievements and discovery in nanomedicine. Several world-renowned artists submitted their paintings and sculptures to this art contest, including Wojtek Siudmak from Paris and Janusz Kapusta from New York, the contest winner. The event took place in the presence of Prof. Malinski, his wife Helen and Mayor of Paris, along with many other prestigious guests - artists, actors, scientists and other dignitaries.

Prof. Stefan Paszyc, Prof. Tadeusz Malinski at Ohio University

When I asked him how he does it all, he replied with a smile, “I play on ten grand pianos at the same time.” Later he adds, “I need to do that since we have been involved in research that has led to several fundamental discoveries.

That does not happen in science very often.”

and major awards. He is a great patriot, very knowledgeable about Polish history and art. All he comes in contact with learn about the rich heritage of Poland; he is a true Ambassador of his homeland. He organized and designed the Museum of Polish Home Army (AK) at Saint Mary’s College in Orchard Lake, Michigan. He promotes Polish causes and art in general, and on top of that he is an incredible scientific expert on 16th – 18th century European paintings. He provides his expertise in chemical analysis

The visit with Dr. Malinski, a true Renaissance man, was a feast for the soul and mind. It was an honor for us to be in the presence of a great scientist, art lover, gentleman and a friend.

Test Tubes Lighten Up An innovative chandelier made from laboratory test tubes was inspired by the life of Polish scientist, Maria Sklodowska-Curie, the only woman awarded two Nobel Prizes in two different disciplines - chemistry and physics.

The Maria S.C. Lamp - unusual, whimsical and beautifully balanced - successfully merges classical elements with modern design that is reminiscent of the Art Deco style.

The lamp was designed by Magda Jurek, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She brings a conceptual approach to all of her designs, and shies away from conventions and standards in favor of unexpected forms and solutions. Ms. Jurek’s artistic development was greatly inPani Jurek, “Maria S.C.” Lamp. Photo courtesy of Magda Jurek fluenced by growing up in Poland’s 1980’s prefabricated apartment blocks, where living in limited spaces made it essential that products be compact and multi-functional. Her strong belief in sustainability and her creative uses for recycled goods has given her designs and her company, Pani Jurek, a unique place in today’s home decor market.

The Maria S.C. Lamp has detachable tubes so the lamp can be configured in many ways, allowing for visual experimentation.

The tubes can remain empty or filled with water, colored liquid, flowers and other objects, and arranged in different patterns.

See more of Magda Jurek’s products at www.panijurek.pl/en or visit them on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/PaniJurek.

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Board of Directors Meeting March 31, 2013

L

ady Blanka Rosenstiel opened the 2013 Board of Directors meeting by welcoming the Board Members and thanking everyone for their support. The minutes from the 2012 meeting were read and approved.

Lady Blanka gave an overview of the Kosciuszko Chair of Polish Studies, focusing on their excellent educational program and efforts in fundraising. She also mentioned the Christmas and Easter parties of 2012-13 and how both are always a great opportunity to catch up with friends, make new ones, and enjoy Polish treats and a piano recital.

The Harriet Irsay Scholarship report was presented by Jaroslaw Rottermund and Janusz Kozlowski. In the 2012 academic year, 26 students applied for the scholarship: seventeen were complete submittals and from those, eleven students were selected to receive a $1,000 grant. Both Mr. Rottermund and Mr. Kozlowski plan to find new resources to advertise the scholarship’s availability and to solicit more submissions from a broader spectrum of students and schools around the U.S.

Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Ms. Barbara Cooper, Mr. Jaroslaw Rottermund

Ms. Beata Paszyc, the Executive Director of AIPC, talked about the projects and activities in which the AIPC was involved over the past year. The first topic was the Institute’s largest fundraiser, the International Polonaise Ball. The 41st gala was hugely successful and, between the Ball and the next day’s Brunch, many of the over 400 guests raved that it was perhaps the most splendid Ball they had attended in many years. The theme was the long time friendship and relationship between Poland and India, and the decor, food, music and entertainment throughout the night reflected the cultures and traditions of both.

Then Ms. Paszyc talked about the Blanka Rosenstiel Lecture Series on Poland that AIPC presents at Florida International University in collaboration with the European Studies Program of the School of International and Public Affairs. There were three lectures and a showing of the Ryszard Bugajski’s film, Interrogation, and all were well-attended and generated much

discussion among

“Philanthropy is the attendees and almost the only the guest speakers.

Ms. Paszyc also gave a status report on the ongoing functions of the Institute, such as creating and publishing the Good

virtue which is sufficiently appreciated

by mankind.”

Mr. Mike Skronski, Ms. Margareta de Gea Grezell

News, keeping the website current and updated, ensuring that there are volunteers available to staff events if needed, and the importance of boosting new membership while maintaining the Institute’s valued current membership. She talked about books that were donated during the year, and how this kind of contribution keeps AIPC in the public eye and is so needed by schools, organizations and libraries.

In closing, Ms. Paszyc thanked the Board members for all of their help and encouraged them to be as proactive as possible in getting more people involved in the organization.

Mr. Rottermund gave a brief summary of AIPC books that have been purchased via the Internet and although it’s not a “cash cow” it’s great exposure for the Institute’s name and quality of work.

- Henry David Thoreau

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six months, and how and what UBS plans to do to grow the finances for both organizations.

New Business was then discussed. Among the many topics considered as excellent new opportunities for AIPC’s involvement, a few items bear mentioning such as:

Mrs. Inga Luksza Senis, Mrs. Agnieszka Gray

Before addressing New Business, Mr. Chris Garvin, a financial advisor for UBS who is managing both AIPC and Chopin Foundations special accounts, spent some time discussing what UBS has been able to accomplish within the previous

The Nominating Committee suggested three new members and all were elected to the Board in recognition of their ongoing contributions to the Institute and tireless efforts in attracting more members and guests to the events and programs.

They are Mrs. Agnieszka Gray, Dr. Pat Riley and Mrs. Inga Luksza Senis. They were enthusiastically welcomed by all Board members. The three are top performers in their respective fields and can offer the Institute many insights and new fresh ideas over the coming years.

The theme for the 42nd International Polonaise Ball in 2014 is the friendship and relationship between Poland and Argentina.

The meeting was adjourned.

Summer School of Polish Language & Culture The 44th season for the Summer School of Polish Language and Culture began at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland on July 5, 2013. Professor Jerzy Buzek, PhD, the former Prime Minister and the Chairman of the European Parliament, was the keynote speaker at this ceremony. In attendance were Ms. Ellen Germain, Consul General of the U.S. in Krakow, Mrs. Barbara Cooper, Vice President of AIPC, and Dr. Jolanta Tatara, Vice President of Polonia Education, along with many language scholars and students. Dr. Tatara, who is a school principal and an attorney in the Chicago area, presented an introductory lecture entitled, American Policy Concerning Ethnic Minorities and the Effects on the Education of Polish Students in the Chicago District.

This year the Summer School welcomed 415 students from 44 countries representing 5 continents. The objective for attending this school is not only to master the Polish language, but to also learn about Polish culture, customs and history during the summer holidays. Students can choose between 3, 4 or 6 week educational programs, which include classes, workshops, folk dancing, regional cooking, and other Polish related activities, as well as field trips to neighboring Wieliczka, Zakopane and Oswiecim.

Mrs. Barbara Cooper, Prof. Jerzy Buzek, Dr. Jolanta Tatara

For more information please visit: www.plschool.uj.edu.pl Good News 2012-2013

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Consular Information

S

As of April 5, 2010, foreigners traveling to Poland who still need a visa must apply for it electronically and in person.

If they cannot travel to Washington D.C. to submit an application in person, they have to make an appointment for an interview at the Honorary Consulate in Miami to be identified as a person applying for a visa, and to present all necessary documentation and sign relevant documents.

The applicant then sends the completed application to the Consulate General in Washington D.C. which ultimately issues the visa, as the Honorary Consulate in Miami cannot issue visas. Detailed and comprehensive information is also provided on the Embassy’s website.

ince Poland joined the European Union in 2004, many regulations and laws have been changed and amended. Some of those changes relate to the application procedure for passports and visas.

Effective in June 2009, there was a new requirement to appear in person before the Consul to submit one’s passport application. This can only be done through Consulate Generals. However, in order to assist Polish citizens, the Consulate General in Washington, D.C. schedules visits of Consuls who are able to receive applicants in other states and cities in their jurisdiction, including the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Miami. Consuls came to Miami during 2012 and 2013 so that Polish citizens could apply for passports during their visits. Consul Ewa Pietrasieńska came in October 2012 and April 2013.

To make an appointment, applicants must contact the Consulate General in Washington, D.C. All of the information about passport applications for Polish citizens is available on the Polish version of the Embassy’s website: www.washington.mfa.gov.pl

Consul General Piotr Konowrocki, recently appointed Head of Consular Division in Washington D.C., came to visit Florida and the Honorary Consulate in Miami in February 2013.

Consul Konowrocki praised Hon. Consul Lady Blanka Rosenstiel and Hon. Vice Consul Beata Paszyc for their hard work and dedication, often going beyond the call of duty. During the meeting, the Consuls also discussed the scope of their work, voiced some of the concerns of Polish citizens and planned further cooperation.

Consul Ewa Pietrasieńska, Ms. Marta Kister

Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Consul Piotr Konowrocki

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Good News 2012-2013

Konsulat Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej Consulate of the Republic of Poland BLANKA A. ROSENSTIEL – HONORARY CONSUL

The Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Poland was established in October 1998. Honorary Consul Lady Blanka Rosenstiel and her deputy, Honorary Vice Consul Beata Paszyc, provide information and perform consular services free of charge.

Foreigners traveling to Poland who require a visa can also find all the information on the website and need to apply online as well as in person either in Washington, D.C. or at the Honorary Consulate in Miami, by appointment only. All documents are processed at the consular offices serving the state of residence in conformity with their territorial jurisdiction.

Please refer to the list of Polish Consulates in the US.

Although, the Honorary Consulate cannot by law issue, sign or verify any documents, we do provide general information.

The recent changes in the law require that all passport applications MUST be submitted in person at the Consulates General in the appropriate territorial jurisdiction. However, the Consulate General in Washington, D.C. organizes trips to different locations including Miami, FL to enable Polish citizens to submit passport applications in person closer to their residence. The locations, dates and times are provided at the Embassy’s website:

The Embassy of the Republic of Poland’s motto:

“To serve Poland – to build Europe – to understand the world”

www.washington.polemb.net Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York, NEW YORK Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka 233 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 phone: (646) 237-2100, (212) 686-1541 fax: (646) 237-2105, (212) 686-3219 e-mail: info@polishconsulate.org

Consular Division of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in WASHINGTON, DC Head of Consular Division Piotr Konowrocki 2224 Wyoming Avenue N.W. Washington, DC 20008-3992 phone: (202) 234-3800 fax (202) 328-2152 e-mail: washington.consular@msz.gov.pl The Consular Division in Washington DC serves residents of Alabama, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, American Virgin Islands and other US overseas territories.

Consulate General in New York, serves residents of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont.

Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA Consul General Joanna Kozińska-Frybes 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 555 Los Angeles, CA 90025 phone: (310) 442-8500 fax (310) 442-8515 e-mail: losangeles.polishconsulate@msz.gov.pl

Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Chicago, ILLINOIS Consul General Zygmunt Matynia 1530 N. Lake Shore Drive Chicago, IL 60610 phone: (312) 337-8166 fax (312) 337-7841 e-mail: polcon@polishconsulate.org

Consulate General in Los Angeles, serves residents of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.

Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Chicago, serves residents of Arkansas, Illinois, Indian, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin.

1440 79th Street Causeway, Suite 117 Miami, Florida 33141 Phone: (305) 866-0077 Fax: (305) 865-5150 E-mail: polconsulfl@yahoo.com

Good News 2012-2013

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Consular Meetings

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he Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Poland participates in Consular Corps meetings in Miami, during which Consuls from all over the world discuss issues pertaining to consular activities and possibilities of collaboration. During those meetings speakers representing U.S. government, local and state authorities, scientists, educators and business representatives provide valuable information in the areas of their expertise. Some of the interesting speakers have included General John F. Kelly, United States Marine Corps and

Commander U.S. Southern Command; Mgr. Franklyn M. Casale, President of Saint Thomas University; Mr. Barry Johnson, President and CEO of Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce; Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Dr. Rick Knabb, Director of the National Hurricane Center. The meetings provide opportunities for Poland to be recognized as part of the international community represented in Florida. There are also many diplomatic, trade, cultural and social functions in which the Honorary Consulate participates and promotes Poland in South Florida and the U.S.

Hon. Vice Consul Beata Paszyc, General John F. Kelly

Dr. Rick Knapp, Mr. Nabil Achkar Consular Corps Secretary

Dr. Bassem Chahine, Mr. Nabil Achkar, Consul General Alexandra Countess Kendeffy of Germany, Ms. Aleksandra Zupan of Slovenia

Deputy Consul General Gustavo Marcelo Terrera of Argentina, Hon. Vice Consul Beata Paszyc

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Good News 2012-2013

Become a Friend of the Blanka Rosenstiel Lecture Series on Poland at FIU We count on your generosity and financial support to develop and advance the Blanka Rosenstiel Lecture Series on Poland with hopes of establishing a Polish Studies Program at Florida International University.

Please make your checks payable to: The American Institute of Polish Culture, Inc. 1440 79th Street Causeway, Suite 117 Miami, FL 33141 Include in the memo line “Polish Lecture Series�

q Lifetime of Hope: $10,000 and above q Corporate: $5,000+ q Benefactor: $1,000+ q Patron: $250+ q Friend: $50+ q Other: All donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

For more information about the Polish Lecture Series, please visits our website at www.ampolinstitute.org, e-mail us at info@ampolinstitute.org, or call us at 305-864-2349 GoodNews News2010-2011 2012-2013 Good

22 6

Soccer Forever

By Lavinia Bucsa

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n January 18, 2013, in partnership with the Art and Art History Department at Florida International University (FIU), the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence (MEUCE) invited Dr. Przemyslaw Strozek, Polish Contemporary Art expert, to make a presentation on Soccer Forever. Polish Contemporary Art and the National Game, as part of Lady Blanka Rosenstiel’s Lecture Series on Poland at FIU.

Dr. Strozek: Yes, that would be a very interesting project.

One can look at this issue from the perspective of different nationalities, for example how a French artist refers to a famous Italian football player. But I think it would be equally interesting to explore the idea of how would a scholar, not bound by nationality or national ideas, explore the international experiences of soccer.

MEUCE: Besides your PhD in Modernist Studies and a MA in Theater Studies, you also hold a MA in Polish Studies. How do you see the link between Polish studies and theater studies, and how do you approach both of them? What prompted you to focus on the topic of soccer in contemporary art?

MEUCE: Can you talk a little bit about your future projects?

What will you focus on next?

Dr. Strozek: This year, in September, I will participate in a conference that celebrates the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Football Association which will take place at the National Museum of Football in Manchester (UK). I will present my research on Polish contemporary art references to soccer. The other projects are more related to avantgarde studies. More specifically, I will look at how popular culture (for example Hollywood stars or soccer and sports in general) affected the avant-garde artists in the period between 1920-1930.

Dr. Strozek: I started my Polish studies at the University of Warsaw but in my fourth year of study I became more interested in the theater and art. I wrote my master’s thesis on avant-garde and I wanted to explore how Italian futurism affected the Polish arts. This topic became the basis for my PhD studies and I continued to explore how avant-garde changed Polish art. But the topic of soccer and arts came to mind in 2008 after finding out that the 2012 European Football Championship would be held in Poland (with the Ukraine as co-host of the event). In 2011 I started researching the relationship between soccer and the contemporary arts.

I focused not only on Poland but also on Italian futurism, avant-garde movements, and contemporary art. I explored the movements of the 20th century and how soccer affected the artists. I wanted to present my research on Polish reflections of soccer from a perspective that focused on soccer not as a game but as a cultural phenomenon. My intention was to show how many interesting meanings can be derived from this game.

MEUCE: Is this your first visit in Miami? In Florida? In the U.S.?

Dr. Strozek: This has been my very first time in the U.S. The Fulbright Foundation gave me the opportunity to come to America as a 2012/2013 Visiting Scholar at the University of Georgia in Athens. This represented to me a great opportunity to collaborate with American universities and American scholars; to travel throughout the U.S. and give talks at conferences. During one of these conferences, I met Dr. Jacek Kolasinski, Chair of FIU’s Department of Art and Art History, with whom I stayed in contact.

MEUCE: Do you play soccer?

MEUCE: Soccer is such a big European theme. Do you see yourself interested in going beyond “the national” (i.e., Polish experience) and exploring how different national cultures feel about soccer’s function in other parts of the world?

Dr. Strozek: I play sometimes, but only for fun. I prefer to watch a game on television!

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Good News 2012-2013

Dr. Przemyslaw Strozek, a scholar at the Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, specializes in Polish Futurism and Modernist Studies. He is an Assistant Professor at PAS in Warsaw and a lecturer at both the Academy of Fine Arts and the Collegium Civatas in Warsaw, as well as a 2012/13 Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Georgia, U.S. in Modernist Studies. Much of Dr. Strozek’s research is focused on the effect that contemporary culture has on the avant-garde in art and film, and he has authored several studies including many comparing and contrasting the relationship between soccer and visual culture.

Mrs. Christine Caly-Sanchez, Mr. Jacek Kolasinski, Mrs. Beata Paszyc, Mr. Przemyslaw Strozek

Lavinia Bucsa is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Politics and International Relations, School of Politics and International Affairs, at FIU. A native of Romania, her interests include ethnic politics in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) such as the links between Europeanization and regionalization processes in CEE and the impact of political interference in the administrative and society spheres on the EU structural funds in Romania. In the 2012-2013 academic year, Lavinia was the editor of the newsletter published by the MiamiEuropean Union Center for Excellence at FIU. Lavinia Bucsa

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Good News 2012-2013

24

$ %XC 5

Interrogation at FIU

T

he Blanka Rosenstiel Lecture Series at FIU is a collaboration of the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence (MEUCE) with the American Institute of Polish Culture (AIPC) and the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Miami. On November 29, 2012 the film Interrogation by Ryszard Bugajski was screened for students and faculty of history, political science and the general public.

The event began with a welcome by Dr. Rebecca Friedman, the Director of MEUCE, who introduced Beata Paszyc, the Executive Director of the AIPC and Honorary Vice Consul of the Republic of Poland, who shared a personal story about the film: “The film you are about to watch was the most famous “Colonel” [Pulkownik] in Polish cinematography, but this expression has absolutely nothing to do with a military rank. “Półka” in Polish means “a shelf,” so the film industry people coined a new word “półkownik” for those films that were censored and banned. They were not to be released to the general public and were shelved to gather dust and be forgotten for many years. In fact, “Interrogation” sat on a shelf for seven years as it was deemed “the most anti-communist film in the history of the Polish Peoples’ Republic.” The making of the film also resulted in the dissolution of the film production company led by the famous Oscar winning director, Andrzej Wajda.

But despite the ban, the movie circulated underground, secretly leaked by the movie director himself. I saw it right after it was produced. One of my friends got his hands on an illegal VHS copy, while another said he had a video player and his parents were out of town. There were about 6 of us. There was also an interesting twist. The block of apartments where we watched the banned film were so-called “military apartments” where only the police, military, or secret police could acquire apartments - they were part of a regular neighborhood.

Polish movie poster of Interrogation

Mrs. Beata Paszyc, Dr. Rebecca Friedman

So this is how I came to watch such an illicit film, which tells the story of one person who stands as a symbol for what was quite prevalent during the communist regime in Poland. It is not a happy film nor does it cringe from the way life was under the regime. As you watch it, bear in mind that hundreds of thousands of people endured this enforced way of life during one of the gloomiest times in the of history of Poland. It is time for the real story to be told.”

Interrogation This 1982 Polish film tells the story of false imprisonment under the pro-Soviet regime in Poland in the early 1950’s. Due to its anti-communist themes, the film was banned from public viewing by the Polish communist government until the 1989 dissolution of the Eastern Bloc.

The film had its first theatrical release in December 1989 in Poland and was entered into the 1990 Cannes Film Festival as a nomination for the Palme d’Or. Krystyna Janda won the award for Best Actress.

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Good News 2012-2013

In Loving Memory Walter Beaman (1925-2013) With saddened hearts we say good-bye to Mr. Walter Beaman, a dear friend, and a generous long time supporter of the American Institute of Polish Culture. Mr. Beaman passed away on January 9, 2013.

in a professional manner and, though he was quite accomplished, he was very modest. He will be missed dearly and will live forever in the memories of those who knew and admired him.

Regina, we would like to thank you for sharing Walter with us. He loved the history and culture of Poland thanks to you, who showed him its beauty and the unbreakable spirit of the Polish people. You are in our thoughts and prayers.

He actively participated in many activities of the Institute, attending various lectures and the annual International Polonaise Ball in which he happily danced with his Polish wife, Regina, in the opening Polonaise every year until 2008. His legal knowledge was instrumental in helping to establish the Kosciuszko Chair of Polish Studies at the University of Virginia, and he created countless contracts and amendments, and worked pro bono on the transition of the Kosciuszko Chair funds to a new permanent higher institution. Mr. Beaman also gave AIPC his time by helping us research, write and edit Ball invitations and the Good News. His enthusiasm and high energy always made it a pleasure to work with him.

let’s hasten Let’s hasten to love people they leave us so quickly just shoes and dead telephone all that’s left after them only the unimportant dawdles by like a cow the most important so quick that suddenly it happens later the usual quiet so altogether unbearable like the purity born most simply out of despair when we think of someone and are now left without them Don’t be certain you have time for certainty is uncertain it takes our sensitivity so like every good fortune comes always at the same time like pathos and good humour like two desires that happen to be still weaker than one here they depart so quickly like the thrush in July fall silent like a sound a bit clumsy or like a stifled greeting in order to see in fact they tend to shut their eyes though it’s a greater risk to be born than it is to die we love still too little and constantly much too late

Mr. Beaman entered the Engineering School of the University of Virginia in 1942. He served in the US Naval Reserve during WWII, leaving the service as a Lieutenant to return to the University, where he received his LLB degree (later J.D.) from the law school in 1948.

In 1953 Mr. Beaman joined the legal department of General Electric in Schenectady, NY, eventually relocating to Rye, NY. He served GE at the company’s headquarters in Fairfield, CT for 36 years until his retirement as Tax Council in 1989. He earned an LLM in Taxation from NYU and also taught there part-time for six years, during which he served as president of the NYU Tax Society. He was a member of the Bar in Virginia, New York and Connecticut, and was a member of the Council of American Bar Association’s Section of Taxation.

After his retirement he lived in Jupiter, FL with his beloved wife Regina, who continues to support AIPC’s goals.

Don’t write of this too often but write once and for all and you’ll be like a dolphin gentle and mighty Let’s hasten to love people they leave us so quickly and those who do not leave do not always return here and never is it known when speaking of love itself if the first one is the last or the last one the first

Mr. Beaman will be remembered for his charitable nature and assistance in promoting Polish heritage in the US, for which he received the Amicus Poloniae award from the Ambassador of Poland in 2004. He was a tireless supporter of the missions of the Institute, a great friend and an outstanding, elegant and always charming gentleman. He did everything

Good News 2012-2013

Jan Twardowski For Anna Kaminska

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The Polish Lecture Series at the University of Virginia

By Dr. Piotr H. Kosicki

T

he University of Virginia’s Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) is proud to report that the 2012-2013 academic year has been the most active year in the history of the UVa Polish Lecture Series. Generously endowed by Lady Blanka Rosenstiel and the American Institute of Polish Culture, the UVa Polish Lecture Series fund supports a range of Poland-related events on University grounds. This past academic year, CREEES put on a total of three conferences, three speaker visits, and two public exhibits. Although all of these events benefited from co-sponsorship by various programs and departments at the University of Virginia, all were designed and brought to fruition under the auspices of the UVa Polish Lecture Series, with the overarching goal of promoting awareness among both the University’s students and the wider community about Poland and its history in regional and European context.

On Friday, October 26, 2012, the UVa Polish Lecture Series hosted a conference on Catholic activism in Communist Poland. CREEES associate director Dr. Piotr H. Kosicki had been approached six months earlier by Poland’s Jerzy Turowicz Foundation, which was looking for potential venues in the United States for an English-language version of an exhibit created for the centennial of the birth of Jerzy Turowicz (1912-1999), long-time editor of the Polish Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny. This journal has the dual distinction of, on the one hand, having been the only semi-autonomous Catholic journal to remain active behind the Iron Curtain throughout most of the entire Communist period, and on the other, having provided the forum for Rev. Karol Wojtyła’s debut as a published author – three decades prior to his election to the papacy. Having offered to host the Turowicz exhibit at UVa, CREEES inaugurated the exhibit with a conference featuring leading experts on the history of modern Polish Catholicism - Dr. Maciej Kozłowski, former Polish Ambassador to Israel and former Chargé d’Affaires of the Polish Embassy in Washington, D.C., Professor Brian Porter-Szűcs of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Professor John Connelly of the University of California, Berkeley, and CREEES Associate Director Dr. Piotr H. Kosicki. Over the course of the day, the conference attracted an audience of more than 60 people who listened to topics ranging from Catholic anti-Communism to Polish pastoral and homiletic traditions.

Ambassador Kozłowski, as a figure intimately connected to the Tygodnik Powszechny milieu and, in particular, to Jerzy Turowicz himself, opened the Turowicz exhibit, which then remained on display at the University of Virginia’s Nau Hall for over a month following the conference.

Prof. Jeffrey Rossman, Prof. James Felak

In December, the UVa Polish Lecture Series featured yet another conference on the history of Catholicism. By the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, which between 1962 and 1965 transformed the face of Roman Catholicism, few historians or theologians had troubled themselves to look at the Council’s consequences for countries governed by Communist regimes. The conference on Saturday, December 1, 2012 at UVa considered the Council’s consequences for Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and U.S. Cold War policy. The central case was that of Communist Poland, as the one country behind the Iron Curtain whose Catholic community remained strong enough to maintain an autonomous presence at the Council, including the young but increasingly prominent Bishop – and, beginning in 1964, Archbishop – Karol Wojtyła, the future John Paul II. Speakers at the conference included Professor James Felak of the University of Washington, the Reverend Professor Gerald Fogarty of the University of Virginia, Professor Árpád von Klimó of the Catholic University of America, Professor Melissa Wilde of the University of Pennsylvania, and CREEES Associate Director Piotr H. Kosicki.

After the Vatican II conference, four months were required to prepare the main Polish Lecture Series event of the 20122013 academic year, a conference devoted to the Katyń Massacres of 1940. During the intervening months, CREEES hosted two guest speakers on Polish history. Dr. Małgorzata Mazurek of Columbia University gave a lunchtime seminar 27

Good News 2012-2013

on Thursday, January 24, 2013 on the topic of Poland’s contribution to the transformation of scientific knowledge about the de-colonizing Third World. One month later, Professor Marci Shore of Yale University gave both a public lecture and a seminar. Advertising her new book entitled The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe, Shore lectured on Thursday, February 28, 2013 to a packed lecture hall about some of the cultural, intellectual, and political legacies of Communism for Poland and the Czech Republic. The next day, she led a seminar on her new project concerning the place, among others, of Polish thinkers (ranging from Roman Ingarden to John Paul II) in the Central European philosophical school known as phenomenology.

22,000 captive

Polish armed-forces officers and political prisoners were

and Dr. Łukasz Michalski, Deputy Director of Public Education for Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance.

In addition to the conference itself, CREEES hosted an

by Soviet extensive Englishsecurity forces (NKVD) language exhibit of the Katyń Massacres expertly prepared by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, which generously loaned its display to the University of Virginia for 10 days.

Beginning on the day of the conference, the exhibit attracted a very large audience, with professors from multiple departments encouraging their students to view the panels.

murdered

The capstone event of the 2012-2013 academic year for the UVa Polish Lecture Series was the Saturday, March 23, 2013 conference devoted to the legacy of the Katyń Massacres, in which approximately 22,000 captive Polish armed-forces officers and political prisoners were murdered by Soviet security forces (NKVD) over the course of a six-week period in the spring of 1940. Designed to cover history, memory, law, museums, and education, the conference brought together some of the world’s preeminent experts and practitioners who have shaped historical memory of Katyń inside and outside Poland. Advertised widely with the help of both the Polish Embassy in Washington, D.C. and Polish-American clubs and societies in Virginia and North Carolina, the conference drew an audience of over 120 people over the course of the day. Speakers included Allen Paul, author of Katyń: Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of Truth, Dr. Nikita Petrov, Deputy Director of Russia’s MEMORIAL Society, Dr. Izabella Sariusz-Skąpska, President of the Federation of Katyń Families, Professor Ireneusz Kamiński of Jagiellonian University, who is arguing the ongoing Katyń case against Russia before the European Court of Human Rights, Mr. Sławomir Frątczak, Director of the Katyń Museum in Warsaw,

Finally, celebrated Polish poet Piotr Sommer visited the University on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. He read his poetry both in the original Polish and in English translation, and he took questions from an audience consisting of students, faculty, and community members.

All of this year’s events were covered in campus media, and news about the Katyń conference in particular has traveled widely, inspired by reflections posted online by various conference participants, including Allen Paul and Sławomir Frątczak.

The uniformly excellent attendance at this year’s events goes hand-in-hand with cooperation across lines of multiple programs and departments that, when asked, agreed enthusiastically to support events promoting awareness of Polish history. For the Katyń conference, CREEES benefited from grants from the University’s Page-Barbour Fund and the Center for International Studies. Throughout the year, the following University organizations, as well as the St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought, contributed to events hosted by the UVa Polish Lecture Series - the Institute for Global Humanities and Cultures, the Jewish Studies Program, and the Departments of History, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Sociology.

Most gratifying about the year’s events was the systematic attendance of undergraduate students with a range of majors, reflecting a genuine interest in Poland fostered, by among others, CREEES-affiliated courses taught at the University of Virginia by faculty such as Dr. Piotr H. Kosicki and Slavic Department Professor Dariusz Tolczyk.

CREEES wishes to thank the American Institute of Polish Culture, and particularly its President, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, for their commitment, support, and generosity, without which none of these events would have been possible. continued on page 38...

Mr. Allen Paul, author

Good News 2012-2013

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Truth Finally Revealed The Holocaust Museum recently released new statistics on the number of Nazi concentration, labor and death camps during WWII. This data is making a huge impact on what much of the world thought was an ironclad history, and has opened up a much needed and long-awaited dialogue amongst scholars and historians. With thousands of documents being declassified in the last few years, the true horrific facts of what the Nazi regime did to millions of people from all cultures, faiths and countries is finally being revealed.

The number of camps set up by the Nazis is now estimated at 42,500. This is an astounding six times the previous estimate of 7,000. Camps were located in countries such as Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Holland and Lithuania, and are identified by function.

• 980 concentration camps • 30,000 slave/labor camps and numerous extensions • 1,000 for “war prisoners” • 1,150 Jewish ghettos • 500 bordellos of non-Jewish women from occupied countries • 3,000 work camps were in Berlin, housing citizens waiting deportation to the death camps

Polish WWII Survivors USHMM Needs You! On May 6, 2013, The Kosciuszko Foundation hosted a presentation from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) of excerpts from the hundreds of filmed testimonies given by victims of the Nazi genocide in Poland accompanied by documents about Polish victims. There are currently over 350 Polish oral testimonies in the more than 12,500 interviews the Museum has in the archives, but because there were so many atrocities visited on Poland’s lands, there are many more accounts from Polish survivors that should be memorialized as part of USHMM’s living memorial. Therefore, they are asking all Polish survivors who experienced the atrocities firsthand--Jewish and non-Jewish--and who would be willing to give an oral account on camera about what they witnessed and experienced to contact them. Also the donation of artifacts, documents, photographs and other ephemera--basically material evidence--will go a long way in helping to preserve the true history of the Nazi’s systematic persecution of the Polish people on Polish lands.

USHMM maintains one of the largest Holocaust-related oral history archives in the world, as well as housing America’s ITS collection, which contains diverse information about the persecution and murder of Poles, Jews and other non-Jewish victims under Nazi rule. These archives include listings of camp arrivals, forced labor documents, Polish Catholic marriage deeds, etc.

For more information on how to become part of this historical initiative, visit www.ushmm.org or call (202) 488-0406 and ask to be directed to Survivor Affairs.

“This is a very important initiative to preserve the history of Poland while these

Polish survivors are still with us.”

(Excerpted from a letter to the Post Eagle on May 1, 2013 from Alex Storozynski, President, The Kosciuszko Foundation.)

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The Return of Poland’s Cultural Heritage

By Tania C. Mastrapa General Hans Frank’s residence. The painting was believed lost forever until 2012 when it was discovered in a bank vault located in an undisclosed country. Although Portrait of Young Man has yet to be returned to Poland, presumably negotiations continue.

Murzynka (1884) by Anna Bilinska-Bohdanowiczowa, was listed in Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg’s “The Lost Art Database, INTERPOL’s Works of Art Database and the Polish Ministry of Culture’s Objects Lost Due to The World War II” – a database funded by Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, founder of The American Institute for Polish Culture. Although amply publicized as a looted artwork from the National Museum in Warsaw, Berlin’s Villa Grisebach auction house listed Murzynka [Negress] for a November 25, 2011 auction. The restitution settlement required the Ministry of Culture to pay the German who had last purchased the piece. In 2012 the painting returned to Poland.

T

The Holy Trinity, Seat of Mercy

by Georg Pencz

In 1918 art collector Konstanty Karnowski donated In the Artist’s Studio (1883) by Leon Wyczolkowski to the National Museum in Warsaw. In 1944 the painting disappeared, the most logical explanation of course was that it was looted by German occupiers. A Berlin auction house listed the painting for sale in 2009. Although the Wyczolkowski was listed as missing, no photographic or other documentation existed to support the Ministry of Culture’s claim for restitution. In 2011, Witold Konieczny and Roman Kruszewsky purchased the painting and re-donated it to the museum.

otalitarian regimes of the past century violated property rights with impunity. The Nazi regime and Communist dictatorships in Poland and elsewhere conducted widespread looting of artworks, antiques, jewelry and other heritage pieces from churches, synagogues, museums, private residences and individuals.

The plight of nations subjected to invasions, revolutions and occupations is universal. The victors rewrite history, destroy nations and their cultures and enjoy the spoils. Lynn H. Nicholas, author of Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and Second World War, wrote “…the virtually total absence of conscience in the art world; museums, dealers and auction houses…think of a way to acquire a profit from these treasures, which they knew to be stolen. Here the art trade, the greatest unregulated industry in the world, is revealed in all its elegant corruption.” Almost seven decades after the end of the Nazi Utopia and two decades after the fall of official Communism, pieces thought lost forever have surfaced across the globe.

On December 16, 1939 Nazi authorities and art experts packed and shipped 69 chests of silver, gold, manuscripts and art from the National Museum in Warsaw. According to the restitution claim made by the Executive Director of the museum, between the Nazi and private looting, 5,104 works were stolen! Among these pieces was The Holy Trinity, Seat of Mercy by Georg Pencz, a painting that in 1980 found its way to the Vizcaya Museum in Miami, Florida.

Georg Pencz, known as one of the “Little Masters,” was a pupil of Albrecht Dürer. The Holy Trinity, oil on wood measuring about 15 x 20 inches, was sold at auction in Germany after World War II. Details are unclear, but it became part of the personal collection of Claire Mendel who later became Honorary Consul General of Germany in Miami from 195870. Mendel traveled frequently to Europe after World War II to buy art at auctions. Some versions claim Mendel bought the painting from a private collector in Munich on his travels. This latter version concurs with a University of Miami Lowe Art Museum 1967 exhibition catalog. Curiously, all the

In the past few years several works looted from Nazi occupied Poland have been located and others returned to their rightful place. In 1939 Nazi officials stole Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael (ca. 1513-14), part of the Czartoryski Collection in Cracow. The masterpiece was included in the list of must-haves compiled by Kajetan Mühlmann, who reportedly handed the painting to Hermann Göring for his personal collection. Some sources claim it was confiscated for Hitler’s Fürhermuseum in Linz and others claim it was for Governor31

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rizing the painting’s deaccession. Farwell, who anticipated future claims on the Mendel collection, posted the images on the Museum’s online Provenance Research gallery. The provenance research was funded in part by The Rosenstiel Foundation.

museum and catalog numbers had been wiped off the back of The Holy Trinity. In 1976 Mendel donated a collection of 26 paintings and nine sculptures to the Lowe. In 1980 the Lowe donated 9 pieces of the collection to Vizcaya, owned

by Miami Dade County. The painting was on display until 1992 before Hurricane Andrew hit Miami and the collection remained in storage until it was discovered by the renowned historian, Dr. Peter van der Brink, of Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, Holland. He contacted the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland.

Before the paining was returned, a special preview reception was organized on December 21, 2001 by the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Trust together with the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Miami. Many distinguished guests attended the reception and were able to see the 16th century masterpiece in person. In January 2002, Director Farwell travelled to New York City where he personally presented the painting to Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of the Republic of Poland.

In the spring of 2001 the National Museum in Warsaw contacted the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington D.C. and the Honorary Consulate in Miami, as well as Richard Farwell, Vizcaya’s Director, and curator Maciej Monkiewicz to examine the work. Together Farwell and Monkiewicz viewed the painting under infrared lights and carefully examined the hair, wrinkles, clothing folds, jewels and a repaired crack. It was a clear match to that in the National Museum’s catalog.

Although Farwell recommended the painting be returned to Poland, the Miami Dade County Commission first had to approve. Honorary Consul General of Poland in Miami, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, presented the case to the Commission, and on December 18, 2001 members passed a resolution autho-

Numerous heritage pieces from Poland remain at large in the world. Other cases of Communist and Nazi looted artworks remain mired in lengthy legal battles. The amicable terms of restitution and the generous financial support of Poland’s sons and daughters not only help to rebuild Poland’s private and public collections little by little but generate goodwill between largely maligned museums, auction houses and galleries and legitimate owners.

Tania C. Mastrapa, a Research Professor of Cuban and Latin American Studies at The Institute of World Politics (IWP) in Washington, D.C., is also the founder of Mastrapa Consultants, a firm specializing in claims on property confiscated by the current Cuban regime. Dr. Mastrapa speaks frequently throughout the world on property restitution and privatization, and has published extensively. In the Winter of 2013 she will release Cuban Booty, the first book in her series on property in Cuba. Dr. Mastrapa was educated at Boston College, Carroll School of Management (B.S.), Tufts University, The Fletcher School (M.A.L.D.), and University of Miami, Graduate School of International Studies (Ph.D.).

Wartime Losses mation provided by museologists, collectors and art lovers.

Should you recognize any of the objects presented on the website below, please contact the Polish Ministry of Culture directly. Your help is essential in righting some of the terrible losses of war.

Hundreds of valuable and historical artifacts, artworks, fine jewelry - even monuments - were stolen from Poland during WWII. As with any stolen item of great worth, recovery and return to the rightful owners can be a long, painstaking process over many years. Nonetheless and against great odds, several pieces have been recovered throughout the world and returned to Poland. But there are still hundreds of priceless items missing.

For two decades, the Polish Ministry of Culture has been compiling the records, photos, catalogue entrys and any other information about stolen pieces including paintings, precious metal and gem works, ancient pieces of armor, centuries old fabric and actual land memorials honoring people and events. The sheer volume of missing items is overwhelming.

Portrait of Jozef Pilsudski

by Krzyżanowski Konrad (c. 1920)

The Ministry of Culture has created a website with pictures and short descriptions of each looted item in the hopes that they will be recognized and reported. The recovery of many of the pieces over the last 20 years has been due to inforGood News 2012-2013

http://www.mkidn.gov.pl/pages/strona-glowna/dziennikarze/newsletter/wartime-losses.php 32

The Insatiable Life of Hilary Koprowski

By Beata Paszyc

D

r. Hilary Koprowski was one of the world’s leading biomedical researchers, virologists and immunologists. He was the first in the world to discover the polio vaccine, which was based on oral administration of attenuated poliovirus. In addition to his passion for science and medicine he was a pianist, composer, writer, poet, and a connoisseur and collector of fine art. He was also a polyglot, fluently speaking seven languages, an eloquent interlocutor with a phenomenal memory and a sharp observer of current events - a true renaissance man.

Hilary Koprowski was born on December 5, 1916 in Warsaw, Poland. His father Paweł was an owner of a small textile company and his mother Sonia was a dentist. In Koprowski’s opinion, during his high school years in Warsaw he received the most comprehensive humanities education and began his lifelong love of poetry. Throughout his life, he never missed an opportunity to meet with his fellow students from high school during his visits to Poland. Parallel to his studies in high school, Koprowski studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory and continued in the famous Italian Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia in Rome. An abiding love of music and playing the piano stayed with Koprowski throughout his life, but it was his passion for medicine that was closest to his heart.

Dr. Hiliary Koprowski

PA where they lived for the rest of their lives. They had two sons, Christopher and Claude, both of whom followed their parents’ footsteps by becoming physicians.

In 1948 Koprowski, who, as a virologist and immunologist, and wanting to find an oral cure for the polio epidemic raging throughout the world, mixed live culture ingredients in a standard kitchen blender and drank the concoction, thus successfully inoculating himself against polio. After his coworkers later did the same with excellent results, the oral vaccine was given to children, and later mass vaccinations were administered in Belgian Congo (now Zaire), Rwanda, Poland and Croatia to great success. And yet, although the polio vaccine discovered by Koprowski had unparalleled results in Europe and Africa, it was never approved for use in the United States.

In 1934 he began his studies at the School of Medicine at the University in Warsaw and graduated in 1939. The year before that, in 1938, he married school mate Irena Grasberg (19172012). Irena was his dearest companion and most dedicated partner in all of his enterprises, while maintaining her own career in medicine. She specialized in pathological anatomy, and as Professor of Pathology at Temple University Medical School in Philadelphia, PA, she developed and expanded the science of cytopathology (using cells to study, diagnose and treat disease). She was a consultant at the World Health Organization (WHO), wrote one book about her vibrant life with Hilary and an autobiography of her personal and professional journeys entitled, A Woman Wanders Through Life and Science (SUNY Press, 1997). Koprowski once said about Irena, “Perhaps I have not understood her all the time, but now I see it clearly...it was endearing how much she was devoted to me.”

So the question arises - why was the vaccine never used in the US when it was saving hundreds of thousands of lives overseas? Poland in the 1950’s had thousands of cases of polio. In 1951 about 3,000 children had polio which grew to 6,000 cases by 1958. That same year Koprowski sent 9 million vaccines to Poland, and children and adults were immediately vaccinated; as a result of this by 1963 there were only 30 known cases of polio in Poland. Thanks to Koprowski’s vaccine a great number of people were saved and the disease was practically eliminated. In 2002 WHO declared Europe entirely free of polio.

As soon as they both graduated University, WWII broke out, and Poland was attacked and occupied by Germany, so the Koprowskis fled to Italy. A year later, in 1940, they went to Brazil where he first taught piano lessons to make ends meet and later worked at the Yellow Fever Lab in Rio de Janeiro. In 1944 they moved to Wynnewood near Philadelphia,

Other polio vaccines were developed by Jonas Salk (born in Harlem, NY to Polish-Jewish immigrant parents) who 33

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from all over the world including, of course, Poland. A number of essential vaccines were developed during Koprowski’s tenure, including one for rubella (German measles) developed in the 1960s by Stanley Plotkin, who also developed an improved and less painful rabies vaccine with Koprowski during the same decade. Dr. Koprowski held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania, with which Wistar is associated, and was later affiliated with Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. In 1989 the Koprowski Foundation was established in Poland to promote and support young talented scientists in biological and medical research.

Dr. Hilary Koprowski authored close to 900 publications and has been highly praised by the scientific community all over the world. He composed music and wrote In Search of Van Dyck with Yelena Dubrovina, and wrote Behind the Scientific Truth (A Play) along with several books, the most popular being Spare Me Your Thanks and Other Selected Writings. Dr. Koprowski received many prestigious awards, among them the French Legion of Honor, the Order of the Lion from the King of Belgium, a Fulbright Scholarship, and appointment as Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich. In 1989 he received the San Marino Award for Medicine and the Nicolaus Copernicus Medal of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He has received honorary doctorates from Polish universities in Lublin, Poznan, Warsaw, and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit with the Star of the Republic of Poland by the Polish President. In 2008 Dr. Hilary Koprowski received the Gold Medal Award from the American Institute of Polish Culture for his outstanding achievements in the fields of virology and immunology.

Hilary Koprowski with his wife, Irena

introduced his discovery in 1955, and by Albert Sabin (whose Jewish parents were born in Bialystok, Poland) who presented his in the early 1960’s. After Koprowski’s passing on April 11, 2013 at the age of 96, an article in New York Times, published April 20th, quoted historian David M. Oshinsky, “Koprowski’s was the first serious scientific attempt at a livevirus polio vaccine.” Oshinsky, whose 2005 book Polio: An American Story chronicles the race to pre-empt the disease, went on to say, “Jonas Salk is a god in America, Albert Sabin’s got a ton of publicity, and Hilary Koprowski, who really should be part of that trinity, is the forgotten man.”

In 1958, Dr. Koprowski also administered his vaccine to almost 250,000 patients in six weeks in the Belgian Congo. Unfortunately, this success would later come back to haunt him.

In 1999 British author Edward Hooper, without any data or scientific proof, postulated in his book, The River: A Journey Books about Hilary Koprowski include Listen to the Music. to the Source of HIV and AIDS (Little, Brown, 1999), that Dr. The Life of Hilary Koprowski by Roger Vaughan (Springer, Dec. Hilary Koprowski had unintentionally spread HIV, the virus 2012) and in Polish Wygrać kazdy dzień (To Win Each Day) and autobiography written together with Agata Tuszyńska that caused AIDS, by injecting pa(Diana, 1996). tients in the Belgium Congo with contaminated polio vaccines. Koprowski …it has been the His long and colmade many retaliatory statements orful life could that he did not use chimpanzees certainly be a (who are prone to contract HIV) in his great script for a polio research and gave a sample of and that fascinating movthe original vaccinations to be tested ie. To those who by an independent lab. Although the has formulated the career of knew him well, lab proved without a doubt that inDr. Koprowski was

Dr. Hilary Koprowski deed he did not spread the disease an extraordinary nor had anything to do with HIV, Koprowski was deeply hurt gentleman, a person full of passion who loved life and knew by the negative publicity. how to live it each day. His life was inspiring and fulfilling In years 1957 to 1991 Koprowski served as Director of Wistar where happiness and difficult challenges intertwined, and Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia, transform- where his thirst for knowledge never ended. Prof. Pekka ing it into leading center of vaccine research. The Wistar Insti- Hayry, who spent years at the Wistar Institute, wrote in the tute, founded in the early 1800’s, is the oldest independent congratulatory letter to Koprowski on the occasion of an honnon-profit institution in America dedicated to new and origi- orary doctorate, “Life is uphills and downhills - we all have nal research in the biological and medical sciences. Koprowski experienced that. Dr. Koprowski was born under lucky stars created a modern facility visited by scientists and researchers and maybe the valleys have not been as deep as the hills that

enormous intelligence, drive, virtue discipline

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he has climbed have been high. He has had good guidance by our Lord, but by far it has been the enormous intelligence, drive, virtue and discipline that has formulated the career of Dr. Hilary Koprowski.”

Andrzej Legocki is a Professor of biochemistry. His research focuses on plant molecular biology, molecular genetics of symbiotic nitrogen fixation plant transformation and regeneration, and pathogenesis-related proteins - their expression and gene structure, cytochemical localization of plant gene expression products and plant-based recombinant oral vaccines. A list of publications includes over 180 original papers and about 200 contributions, as well as several patents in plant biotechnology. He is a former President of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Prof. Legocki was also a friend of Dr. Hilary Koprowski.

A maverick and pioneer, Hilary Koprowski’s insatiable life serves as a reminder that one person can change the sequence of events and change history. His scientific work paved the path for many new discoveries and innovations, and his zeal for the arts was an excellent counterbalance to the pressure under which each scientist has to work. May his legacy live forever and his dedication to the greater good be an inspiration to us all. Koprowski’s favorite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), summed it up perfectly. “Let life happen to you. Believe me, life is in the right, always.” *This article is based on Hilary Koprowski (1916-2013) written by Professor Andrzej B. Legocki that appeared in the February 2013 issue of Nauka (Science).

Did you know…

Historical markers are, to quote The Historical Marker Database (HMdb.org), “bite-size bits of local, national and global history.” They mark the place where an important event occurred that made local, national or international news, where an individual made an impact on the world, where an unusual natural feature or the first-of-its-kind man-made structure stood or still stands.

They chart man’s physical progress on his journey over land and through time, and they mark for posterity the many wonderful actions and sometimes horrific deeds that were visited upon a particular place at a specific time. Historical markers can be personal to the region in which they reside, they can be the single remaining artifact of a profound moment in history or be one person’s permanent token of an important personal passage. Many possess outstanding artwork, florid prose, and long-forgotten names, while others are straightforward notes with no design nor relevant significance anymore. Whatever an historical marker does, has or is, one thing they all have in common is an ability to touch people hearts and imaginations, and to hopefully inspire a sense of pride in those left behind.

happened by Polish people on American soil or to honor Poles who made a difference in the U.S. Mr. Obst has the green light on the installation of a marker to honor Polish-American engineer and bio-medical inventor, Walter Golaski. Dr. Golaski was on the team who develDr. Walter Golaski oped the first artificial blood vessel replacement which was a huge medical breakthrough. Dr. Golaski was a very active Chairman of the Kosciuszko Foundation, where, as Mr. Obst says, “He encouraged the exchange of students and scholars between the United States and Poland...and encouraged Americans of all ethnic backgrounds to participate in the Foundation’s programs and experience Polish culture directly.”

A tentative date for the dedication of this marker to be placed near Dr. Golaski’s machine shop and offices on Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia is May 17, 2014.

Peter J. Obst has been a champion of historical markers denoting important Polish-American efforts, people and events throughout various States for many years. He and his collaborators are tireless in ensuring that historical markers are installed to commemorate events that

For ongoing information, see http://www.polishcultureacpc.org/Golaski/index.html

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36

The Best Sky Fighters

By Lynne Schaefer

O

American aviators to create a volunteer fighting squadron.

He then approached Marshal Jozef Pilsudski in Warsaw and offered his squadron’s services in combating the invaders during Poland’s hour of need. He named the squadron in tribute to Poland’s great patriot, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, for his immeasurable contribution to America during her hour of need.

ne of the greatest defensive battles of all time was dubbed the “The Miracle on the Vistula River.” The Kosciuszko Squadron resoundly defeated Russia’s one-million strong cavalry from decimating Warsaw by staging a nonstop barrage of raids and air attacks, successfully blocking the Soviet troops from doing much damage, and ensuring Poland’s victory. Not only that, but it was postulated that had the Squadron not so dramatically forced the Red Army to retreat from Warsaw during that battle in 1920, all of Europe may have fallen under Lenin’s communist rule.

The co-founder of the Kosciuszko Squadron was a Florida born airman by the name of Merian Cooper, whose ancestor, Colonel John Cooper, was a friend of Kazimierz Pulaski, a great hero of America’s Revolutionary War and a Polish nobleman and military commander. Merian grew up enthralled with colorful stories of battles defending a man’s land with honor and duty, and the lasting friendships that war creates.

Although he could have followed his father into a comfortable life practicing law, Merian followed his heart and his great grandfather’s example of being in service to his country and enlisted in the Army Signal Corps.

Merian Cooper in the cockpit of his Albatros D III (Oeffag)

WWI (1914 - 1918) was just starting and Cooper was one of the first American bomber pilots to fight in Europe, eventually getting severely burned during his tour. This didn’t deter him as his desire to stop the occupation of free countries never wavered. When Poland became the target of Lenin’s Red Army, Cooper was incited to gather seven of his fellow

Merian Cooper’s heroic team of aviators is just part of the long, fascinating journey of this courageous, innovative and dedicated man. Despite almost losing his hands in a fiery crash during WWI and then being horribly tortured while imprisoned, Cooper managed to escape to Latvia and eventually land back in the States, where he was a founding member of the Board of Directors of Pan American Airlines and spearheaded much of the company’s success over the next several years.

All Warsaw is at the feet of the American ace

But he longed to bring something new and thrilling to American audiences bowing under the weight of the Great Depression. So in typical Merian Cooper style, he founded a movie studio, brought in the top cinematographers and technology whiz kids of the time, and wrote, produced and directed one of the all time epic monsters movies, King Kong. With it’s iconic scene of the great ape atop the Empire State Building defending himself from attacking planes, Cooper was able to not only create the most exciting movie of its day (1933) but also make a few subtle and not so subtle comments about WWI and his beloved Kosciuszko Squadron.

who was twice shot down from the clouds, twice endured the squalor of prison camps, twice was reported dead.

Notwithstanding his successful adventures in Hollywood, Cooper re-enlisted in the US Army Air Force and fought with honor during WWII (1939 - 1945). As expected of this unique

from 1921 news article 37

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The excellent book, A Question of Honor (Alfred A. Knopt, 2003), written by award-winning political correspondents Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud, details the full stories of The Kosciuszko Squadron and why the individual men who bravely flew with the squadron deserve to be recognized and remembered as heroes, and why the squadron merits its rightful place in both American and Polish history books.

Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud were awarded the American Institute of Polish Culture’s Gold Medals by Lady Blanka Rosenstiel during the 2007 International Polonaise Ball. If you are interested in obtaining this fascinating book, the Institute has several copies for sale at the discounted price of $22.00 (orig. $27.50). Please contact assistant@ampolinstitute.org or call 305-854-2349.

A scene from King Kong

“The best sky fighters I saw anywhere” is a quote by an American fighter pilot when describing the 303 in a Collier’s magazine article in 1943 (from A Question of Honor).

man, he led many missions and carefully planned them to minimize loss of life, serving mostly in China and Southeast Asia. After the war, he returned to movie making and a successful collaboration with renowned director John Ford, creating the John Wayne blockbusters, Rio Grande (1950) and The Searchers (1956).

By the early 1940’s, the Kosciuszko Squadron 303 was an integral part of Poland’s military might in England. When Britain was threatened with an impending German invasion, the squadron of refugee Polish aviators flew alongside RAF planes against Adolf Hitler’s Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, once again roundly defeating the enemy and changing the course of not only the war but of history. The squadron’s expertise in strategic sky fighting and courage in battling a tyrannical power in their adopted lands will forever earn the Kosciuszko Squadron great admiration and a place of honor in both US and Polish militaries. However the Squadron’s existence has been mostly forgotten by anyone outside of military circles or students of history.

The emblem of the Kosciuszko Squadron depicting a stylized American flag superimposed by a Polish cap and scythes

...continued from page 28 On a personal note, it is with a mixture of gratitude, pride, and sadness that Dr. Piotr H. Kosicki, CREEES Associate Director, announces his departure from the University of Virginia. Effective August 2013, Dr. Kosicki will assume the post of Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maryland. Dr. Kosicki will always be grateful to the American Institute of Polish Culture and to the University of Virginia’s CREEES Director, Professor Jeffrey Rossman, for making possible the organization of these events during his time in Virginia. He plans to bring a strong focus on Poland and its history and culture to his new institutional home.

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Front L-R: N. Petrov, P. Cheremushkin, P.H. Kosicki, I. Sariusz-Skąpska, Ł. Michalski, D. Tolczyk Back L-R: A. Paul, S. Frątczak, J. Rossman, I. Kamiński, A. Lynch

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This is Your Captain Speaking

By Beata Paszyc

A

s you settle into a seat on an airplane, after the flight attendants go over safety procedures, you hear a calm voice over the loudspeakers uttering a familiar phrase, “Good Morning, this is your captain speaking” and most of the time it is the deep voice of a man . . . but this time you hear a voice with a much higher register and you realize your captain is a woman.

Hearing a female voice uttering this salutation is almost as rare as winning the lottery. There are only 450 female airline captain pilots in the world which is less than 4% of jet-qualified pilots. I am not sure how many out of 450 women pilots are Polish-American, but I know one of them is, and she happens to be a very good friend of mine. Her name is Marta Zawartko and she is now in her late thirties and lives in Singapore. We met at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in the mid 90’s and my first impression of her was that of a smart, tough girl with a very long blond braid. Over the years of our friendship, I learned she is an extremely intelligent, fearless, honest, compassionate, curious, responsible woman, and she has much shorter hair today. She is a fun person to be around. We travelled together for three weeks to Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, had lots of adventures, and I can say without a doubt that I can always count on her.

So how does the graduate of Georgetown and John Hopkins Universities with a Masters in International Studies and an MBA from the University of Chicago end up flying Boeings and Airbus 320 and 321 planes with 220 passengers on board? I thought the best way to get the answers was by asking her directly.

Beata Paszyc: Marta, you graduated from very prestigious U.S. universities, with degrees that could have led to a career of a diplomat or in business.

Why did you choose flying?

Marta Zawartko: I have it in my blood. Since childhood I have always had a passion for flying--it made me feel completely free. Both my father and brother were airline pilots and as a teenager I spent all my summers on an airfield where I flew gliders and airplanes. It felt as if I were one with the machine, up in the sky counting on only myself. I loved it!

There is also a great sentiment for Polish pilots historically; they were the best pilots in WWII. Think of the Kosciuszko Squadron 303 in the Battle of England and you know what I mean. They were daredevils, brave, unpredictable, and the biggest threat to the Nazis. Even nowadays our pilots are champions in Europe and one of the best in the world, and this is fascinating to me.

Initially, my idea was to have a career in International Relations and fly gliders and aerobatic planes as a hobby. Fortunately, life turned out differently and I ended up flying for commerical airlines as a profession and reading ‘Foreign Affairs’ magazine for leisure. I am part of the generation that witnessed Poland’s transition. When I returned to Poland after all my studies in the U.S., 39

Marta Zawartko

I was full of passion and idealistic ideas, eager to be part of the reforms and economic transitions in the late 90’s. However at that time it was virtually impossible to find government employment that would allow me to support myself. In order to earn a living, I turned to aviation, the only other thing I knew how to do. And now here it is thirteen years later and I work as an airline pilot.

Looking back at my life, I am very glad things worked out the way they did.

BP: So you chose “the road less travelled” yet you get to travel daily. What skills other than the knowledge of planes and flying do you need to possess to be a good captain?

MZ: With present technology at our fingertips in the cockpit, there is increasingly less emphasis on piloting skills. The ability to multitask, prioritize, and to keep a calm and clear mind in unexpected situations is becoming more important than the traditional ‘stick and rudder’ skills of a conventional pilot.

BP: Have you ever had difficult flights with major problems?

MZ: Each flight is different. It is usually the small problems that suddenly overlap each other that are the biggest traps and cause of serious incidents. The difficult flights serve the purpose of being a learning lesson you will never forget, and they teach pilots modesty, conservatism and respect for procedures that ensure safety.

Good News 2012-2013

BP: When people ask where you are from, what do you say?

MZ: When asked, it is natural for me to say I am Polish but I quickly add that I grew up in the U.S. These are the two cultures that make me feel at home and I always get extremely excited to bump into Americans or Poles in South East Asia.

Unfortunately there aren’t many from the U.S. in this region.

BP: I know very well how proud you are of your Polish heritage and yet you have lived most of your life abroad--in the U.S., France, Italy, Germany and now Asia. Why did you decide to live in Singapore?

Marta and her brother Dominik in 1979

MZ: Back in 2005, both Europe and the U.S. were still struggling with economic downturns in aviation. Asia was experiencing incredible growth and this is where the job opportunities were, so I followed them. Singapore is a unique place; this is where all cultures and religions work together in mutual respect toward incredible economic results. It is one of the most advanced countries in every respect, yet it is still the exotic Far East. The country has 3 million citizens and an additional 1.5 million foreigners like me who benefit from the prosperous economy and find gainful employment here.

It is a very international environment with people from all over the world. After living in many countries, it is a fantastic feeling to live here and experience all different cultures in one place. The crime rate is close to zero, there are no drugs or gangs in schools. The local people are modest and kind. I cannot think of a better place abroad to raise my daughter.

Matilda was born here and insists she is from Singapore.

BP: How difficult was it to become a pilot and then a captain, and do you still see much discrimination between men and women pilots?

MZ: This problem is a tricky one, especially when you live and work in Asia, in a profession that has only been pioneered by women of the region in the last few years. For example, one of the biggest and best airlines in the world, Singapore Airlines, still has a complete ban on hiring women as pilots, regardless of their professional credentials. So does Malaysian Airlines. The decision to exclude women is based on religious sensitivities or just simple economics, as it is unarguable that female pilots cost more to operate due to their absence related to pregnancy. Despite firm beliefs in a region that prevents Asian women from enjoying equality in the aviation sector, even here the world is changing with more opportunities opening up for women.

BP: You are a working, single mother with a small child. How do you manage that? Can women have it all?

My own experience has been very positive.

I don’t take it personally when I land at an Asian destination and the airport staff adMZ: Again, my experience might be differdresses my first officer as captain and reent from most women who are driven in ports to them completely while ignoring my their careers. Anne-Marie Slaughter, the presence in the cockpit, just because he is former director of policy planning for the a man and I am a woman. These are local U.S. State Department and currently a Dean are champions in perceptions and it will take a generation to of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of change people’s beliefs. However, my favorEurope and Public and International Affairs, stated corite situation is when I have a 100% female rectly in her realistic article, ‘Why Women one of the crew, when all six of us are walking together Still Can’t Have It All,’ “. . .the women who to the gate -- most of the passengers look have managed to be both mothers and concerned and some would happily skip the top professionals are super human, rich, flight and catch the next one. The looks on or self-employed . . .” Her in-depth article their faces are priceless! But it is already a fully describes the reality, struggle and chalhuge leap forward. It was only few years ago lenges of remarkable women professionals that we were permitted to be rostered towho dare to have a family. gether, both captain and first officer females.

It often feels we are failing as mothers and as profesIn the past, the airline’s concern was that the Asian public sionals while exhausting ourselves to keep up with the was not ready to board a flight with two female pilots flying business world and family expectations. I also went together without a single man in the cockpit. Last year a through a period of struggle before I found a balance. passenger in India refused to fly with a female captain and demanded that the airline replace her with a male captain.

One has to make a compromise for a period of time--it is The lady captain off-loaded the passenger and continued a personal choice whether to give up some of the famwith the flight. ily responsibilities or to just slow down at work if possible.

Polish pilots

best in the world.

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I was very fortunate to be able to adjust my work schedule to meet the needs of my daughter. I work a five day week for six weeks and then stay at home for three weeks. I fly only regional routes, with no overnights, and always head back home the same day or night to my daughter. I have a live-in nanny who takes care of Matilda when I go to work at night. Without her my choices would not have been possible.

BP: Thank you Marta for sharing your beautifully unpredictable life. Life is a journey. I wish you safe and happy voyages.

And I think the only way for working mothers to succeed is to recognize we can’t do it all ourselves and that it doesn’t have to be perfect. It is okay to have a partner, relative or a nanny to help us along, to make it work during a few crucial years.

Slowing a bit in a career, taking it part-time or delaying a stressful promotion to coordinate with household needs could also be useful. Again, it worked for me. Only under these circumstances can “we have it all,” although it might take a bit longer than it takes the “average” man. Despite all the hard work and everyday struggles, I would never want to have it the easy way and miss out on the experience of motherhood.

Marta and Matilda

Did you know… heavy grain that, combined with a pattern of regular wind and tidal paths, manages to maintain some truly impressive dunes. Two worth mentioning are Rowokol which soars 377 feet above sea level and Gora Lacka at 141 feet.

Poland is home to the largest sand dunes in Central Europe. Located in Slowinski National Park between Leba and Rowy on a 20-mile stretch of the Baltic Sea coastline, these mountains of sand are the product of millions of years of the ocean’s floor washing ashore. What makes this shoreline so special is that the approximately 160,000 tons of sand deposited here yearly are constantly pushed by the wind into an evolving and changing beach - a virtual movable sand vista - and yet some of the dunes remain and continue to grow. Many factors need to be in place in order for a pile of sand to grow to enormous heights, as the onslaught of wind and tides, the size and weight of each grain of sand, vegetation growth and other natural occurrences can literally rearrange the landscape on a daily basis. The Park’s shore line has a

Slowinski National Park was created to preserve this national phenomenon in 1967, and ten years later UNESCO designated the Park a biosphere reserve. A biosphere reserve is a “living laboratory” that allows researchers to broaden man’s understanding of terrestrial and coastal ecosystems, to develop long lasting solutions for the conservation of such lands, and to learn how to sustain the natural flora and fauna of the region. This Park is open to the public so that we may also enjoy its beauty and uniqueness.

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May 3rd Constitution Day

T

he Constitution of May 3, 1791 in Poland was the first written democratic constitution of its type in Europe, and the world’s second oldest codified national constitution after the US Constitution of 1789.

Each year there is a grand celebration at the Ambassador of Poland’s residence in Washington, DC. This year Vice President Joseph Biden was the official guest of honor along with members of the United States Congress. These included the Co-Chairs of the Poland Caucus - Congressman Dan Lipinski and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, as well as Congressmen Paul Tonko, Jeff Fortenberry, Bob Latta and Mario DiazBalart. Lady Blanka Rosenstiel also participated in the celebration on this special occasion.

Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf, Vice President Joe Biden (Courtesy of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland)

and determination of the Polish people that led to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Biden also highlighted Poland’s greater role as a leader on the international stage, pointing out that today, “Poland is a model and mentor for countries seeing Democracy.”

Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf thanked President Obama’s Administration for all of its efforts to date to bring about Poland’s inclusion in the Visa Waiver Program. In his speech, Vice President Biden said, “I am in awe of your country and your people, (…) the courage and pride of Polish people is legendary.” When addressing the historical role Poland played in toppling Communism, the Vice President emphasized that the effort began in Poland and it was the bravery

After the official part of the program guests were entertained by a performance of renowned jazz vocalist, Grazyna Auguscik, and her ensemble with a special Chopin jazz tribute dedicated to Vice President Biden.

Great Friend of Poland

R

ob Coles (1952-2013) entertained thousands of people throughout his life by portraying his fifth great grandfather, Thomas Jefferson. His physical likeness to his enigmatic relative and his ability to enact a founding father of America in a more human, personal, and intimate way through family stories and anecdotes always delighted audiences worldwide. He performed his one man show, Meet Thomas Jefferson, at many US universities, including FIU and the University of Virginia, and his European tours included performances in Warsaw’s Royal Castle and at the Polish Embassy and Bibliotheque Polonaise in Paris. Mr. Coles was a great friend of Poland who highlighted Jefferson’s close friendship with General Tadeusz Kosciuszko and their shared ideologies on emancipation and liberty.

Rob Coles

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Mr. Coles’ unequaled portrayal of Thomas Jefferson lasted for over 35 years, and he educated and brought joy and understanding to thousands of people. He appeared on national programs, including To Tell the Truth and The Today Show. He was a long time friend of Lady Blanka. He will be missed for his goodness and his kindness.

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The Noble and Compassionate Heart of the Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijay Sinhi

By Irene Tomaszewski

B

etween August 1942 and November 1946, nearly 1,000 Polish children and their guardians lived in an idyllic settlement on the Kathiawar Peninsula in India, not far from the summer residence of the Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijay Sinhi.

They had come at the Maharaja’s invitation from orphanages in Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenistan, and Samarkand, Tamerlane’s ancient capital on the Silk Road. Their long journey in canvas-covered trucks led them over serpentine roads through the mountains of the Hindu Kush to the sacred city of Meshed, then on through Persia to Mumbai where they boarded a train that would take them to Delhi to be greeted by the Viceroy of India before settling in the Polish Children’s Camp of Balachadi.

Their odyssey had begun earlier, in 1940, when they were deported from their homes in Poland and sent to the northern or far eastern areas of the Soviet empire by the Red Army that invaded and occupied their country. In 1941, when Nazi Germany turned on its former ally, Stalin’s armies disintegrated within days. Desperate for help, he turned to the Western Allies but, to join that alliance, he had no choice but to release his Polish prisoners, among them thousands of orphaned children.

During the brief period that Poland and the USSR had diplomatic relations, Polish officials set to work to rescue as many of these child prisoners as possible, gathering them from various camps, collective farms and orphanages, or finding them abandoned and fending for themselves after their parents had died. It was imperative to get them out of the Soviet Union but in a world at war, how were they to get out, and where were they to go?

It was then that the Polish government-in-Exile received an unexpected offer of help from the Maharaja Jam Saheb. He was at the time the Chairman of the Council of Indian Rajas and a member of the British War Cabinet.

As soon as he made his announcement, offers of support poured in: a donation of 50,000 rupees from the Viceroy of India was followed immediately by donations from international and religious organizations as well as from wealthy individuals.

The Soviets had agreed in principle to let the children go but in reality they were not at all keen to have the western world see the condition of the starving children. Nevertheless, the Maharaja’s offer launched a chain of action that could not be stopped. A huge convoy of trucks was assembled, Indian drivers were accompanied by local guides and some Polish army mechanics were recruited. Arrangements were made for provisions of food and overnight stops along the way, and the first 500 children set off on this incredibly journey.

Memoirists record the terror of driving on narrow winding roads hugging the mountain on one side and exposed to a steep drop on the other; there were one or two tragic accidents when trucks drove off the road. Once the mountains were behind them they crossed a desert and experienced the horrors of a sandstorm. Both in the mountain and the desert there were concerns about attacks by bandits but although they encountered what looked like raiding parties, the horsemen quickly rode away when they saw the children.

In India, the children boarded trains for Delhi where they were met by visiting dignitaries, primarily the wives of colonial officials. In part this seemed to be a

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The Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijay Sinhi

kind of public relations tour for the benefit of their benefactors but it also gave more time to get the children’s camp ready. A few donors wanted to have some children turned over to their care but the Polish authorities persuaded them that it was easier on the children to be kept together. Instead, it was agreed that children would write letters and send photographs to their “adoptive parents,” perhaps setting a model for the international adoption plans we have today.

One particularly odd offer of help came in a letter from the Women’s Auxiliary Committee of the British Labour Party offering to “adopt” six orphans and provide them with clothing, school supplies and various other necessities.

However, the letter went on to say, “We are anxious that... any little help that we may give should benefit children whose parents were Socialists so we would be most grateful for your cooperation in the matter.” There is no record of interviews with children about their parents’ political persuasions so it seems common sense prevailed.

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The Maharaja attending a school play

Finally the day came when they arrived at Balachadi, a home they could call their own. In the space of a couple of months, a camp was built under the supervision of the Maharaja with dormitories each housing 20-30 children, all of them provided with a wooden bed, a desk, a shelf and a little trunk at the foot of the bed. Each dorm had a couple of communal tables; bathroom facilities were shared. The guardians’ residences had private rooms and shared bathroom facilities. There was a school, a chapel, a community center, an administration office, a dining room, a hospital, doctors’ residence and nurses’ quarters, a town square, a playing field, a laundry and housing for native workers. Upon arrival, they received their provisions - shorts, white trousers, shirts, handkerchiefs, soap, towels, toothbrush, sandals, and a very exotic looking pith helmet. They looked splendid indeed.

The camp was not far from the Maharaja’s residence so one of his smaller palaces, a lovely, graceful building, served as a school. Also the camp was not far from the ocean because, as the Maharaja noted, children love to play on a beach and the sea air would help them recover.

This is just one story of Poles in India.

There were several other camps, some of them transit camps, and one very large family camp called Valivade, in which another Maharaja played a large role. All of them are extraordinary stories of courage, endurance, resilience, Good News 2012-2013

compassion and, to a large extent, the best of human nature.

But for now, to end the story of the Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijay Sinhi, we turn to his own words:

of Nations. I remember one of those meetings. My father took me as a young man to Geneva and there introduced me to his friend, the great artist and statesman. Paderewski noted my hands and said my fingers seemed to be just right for playing the piano, to which my father answered that my fingers may be fine but my ears are not worth a penny. So it was this friendship of my father’s that instilled in me an interest in Poland. Today, when your country is suffering so much, when your people are fighting so heroically and the Polish forces are fighting on every front, when more than a million Poles are scattered across the earth, I am trying to do what I can to save some of the children who must, after their terrible ordeal, regain their strength and their spirit so that they will be able to, in future, fulfill their obligations to their liberated country.”

“I was deeply moved and concerned about the fate of the Polish nation, es- During those four years, the Maharaja pecially those who were living through visited the Polish Children’s Camp on this most terrible of wars as children many occasions, attending their theatand young people, so I wanted to some- rical performances, their national holihow do something to ease their lot. So days and other occasions. In December I extended an invitation for some of 1945, he attended a special event for them to come to a country far from the the blessing of the Scout’s Standard horrors of war. Maybe there, nestled in when he spoke the following words: mountains situated on the shore of the ocean the children could return to good “It is a great honour for me and my wife health, could forget the terror they lived to be the godparents of your standard. through and build up strength to take May these silver nails which we are up their future work as citizens of a free hammering into the wooden staff of country. I was extremely fortunate that the flag become the nails in the coffin I was in a position to help these Polish of the enemies of freedom and of your children. I care deeply about the Pol- homeland...I will remain forever loyal ish nation that is fighting so gallantly and true to Poland, I will always be against enslavement, a nation that produced such special chil The dren. My father was always inknown to the terested in Pol whole world, ish affairs, which will overcome its he knew much about thanks to

present situation (...) his friend ship with that great with this spirit Pole, Paderewski. They used to meet in Geneva at the League

Polish spirit,

you will overcome everything.

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The Balachadi School

Members of the School Orchestra

sympathetic towards the future of your homeland. I feel certain that Poland will be free, that you will return known to the whole world, will over come its present situation, no matter how long it takes. Defend this flag even with your

lives because with this spirit you will overcome everything. Today will remain in the history of Jamnagar as one of the most beautiful occasions. May God bless you and let you return to a free and happy homeland.”

The primary sources for the story of Balachadi are the collective memoir, Polacy w Indiach, 1942-1948, and the archives of the Sikorski Museum in London.

Reprinted with permission from cosmopolitanreview.com.

Irene Tomaszewski is a writer and founding president of the Montreal-based Canadian Foundation for Polish Studies and program director of “Poland in the Rockies”. She is the author of Inside a Gestapo Prison 1942-44: The Letters of Krystyna Wituska. She co-authored Żegota: The Council for Aid to Jews in Occupied Poland 1942-45 and wrote the screenplay for a documentary by the same title produced

by Sy Rotter for Documentaries International (Washington DC).

Ms. Tomaszeweski was awarded the Lech Walesa Media Award in 2011 by President Walesa at AIPC’s International Polonaise Ball for her lifelong contributions in promoting Polish history and culture.

Inspiring Reunion In early August 2013, a few dozen Polish WWII survivors met in Orchard Lake, Michigan to celebrate and reminisce about the unusual circumstances in which they found themselves 65 years earlier. They were part of a massive exodus of displaced Polish children released from Soviet labor camps - orphaned or separated from parents and siblings - who were given safe refuge.

The story of Maharajah Jam Saheb Digvigjaysighi’s huge heart and how India embraced these children and got them through a horrific time in their lives has become a symbol of the goodness and kindness humanity offers in times of great need. The Second Homeland (2012), by Anuradha Bhattacharjee, a New Delhi university scholar, has lovingly recreated and meticulously detailed this impressive period in India’s history. She states, “India, though not sovereign at the time and not at all prosperous, became the first country in the world to accept and offer at her own cost (safety) to the hapless Polish population rendered homeless and subsequently stateless.”

The reunion on August 3rd was a time to reflect about what is perhaps one of the most benevolent acts of generosity and kindness shown to Poland and its people during the war. Each of the survivors reconnected with childhood friends from a difficult time in their lives and were able to share their stories of the “peaceful haven” and the “beautiful palace on the seashore” in India.

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Save the Date

The 42 International Polonaise Ball nd

Argentina & Poland in Love with Tango

at the glamorous and iconic Eden Roc Hotel - a Miami treasure Saturday Ball, February 1, 2014 at 7:00 pm Sunday Brunch, February 2, 2014 at 11:00 am - 2:30 pm Reservations and more information available at 305-864-2349 or e-mail us at director@ampolinstitute.org or assistant@ampolinstitute.org Please also visit our website for tickets at www.ampolinstitute.org

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The 41st International Polonaise Ball a tribute to

Polish – Indian Relations & Friendship Saturday, February 2, 2013

Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Founder & President, Honorary Consul of Poland, President Lech Wałęsa, Countess Barbara Pagowska-Cooper, His Excellency Ryszard Schnepf, Ambassador of Poland, Mrs. Agnieszka Gray, Mr. Keith Gray, Mrs. Izabela Karaszewski, Mr. Jan Karaszewski

M

iami’s charming and venerable Surf Club on Collins Avenue positively glowed on Saturday night, February 2, 2013, when the American Institute of Polish Culture hosted its 41st International Polonaise Ball for prominent dignitaries, business leaders and educators, world-renowned diplomats, celebrities and the Institute’s friends and members.

Presentation of Amicus Poloniae: His Excellency Ryszard Schnepf, Mr. Paul Lowenthal, Mrs. Teresa Lowenthal

Presentation of the Lech Wałęsa Media Award: Dr. Thaddeus Radzilowski, President Lech Wałęsa

Mr. Amedeo Guazzin, Mrs. Miriam Guazzini, Mrs. Rosalie Rosenberg, Dr. Mark Rosenberg, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Marquis Alexander Montague, Mrs. Loretta Swit, Ms. Madhu Mehta, Countess Barbara Pagowska-Cooper, Mr. Keith Gray, Mrs. Agnieszka Gray, Mrs. Alicja Schoonover, Dr. Pat Riley

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Mrs. Maggie Villacampa, Mr. Jorge Villacampa, Marquisa Maria Alonso

Dr. Renata Cymer, Dr. Irena Siemiginowski, Mr. Rafal Cymer, Mrs. Barbara Schafroth

This annual grand gala, the inspiration of Institute founder and president, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, pays tribute to Poland’s and Polish-Americans’ friendship and relations with a different culture or country each year. The Ball celebrates accomplishments in the fields of art, science and education. From its inception in 1972, the Ball quickly became a major event in South Florida’s society circles and throughout the world as one of the most successful grand galas in the United States.

Among the over 300 guests were many esteemed dignitaries from all corners of the world – Argentina, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Monaco, Sweden, and, of course, Poland and India. President Lech Walesa, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and the charismatic leader of the Solidarity movement which ended communist rule in Poland, eloquently expressed his life long admiration of India’s own non-violent freedom fighter, Mahatma Gandhi, and how he continues to be inspired by the profound messages and lessons Gandhi gave to the world.

This year the Institute hosted an enchanting evening honoring Poland’s long friendship and relations with India. Both countries share a mutual admiration for the trials, tribulations and triumphs of their centuriesold cultures and a shared understanding of how to pursue and resolve a country’s struggle for total independence through non-violent beliefs and the actions of its leaders and people.

Among other notable guests were His Excellency Ryszard Schnepf, the newly appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Poland in Washington, DC, Consul General of India in Atlanta, Mr. Ajit Kumar, and former India Ambassador to the US, Mr. Jagganuth Doddamani. Dr. Wojciech Maksymowicz, former Minister of Health & Welfare of Poland, H.R.H. King Kigeli V of Rwanda, H.I.H Ermias Sahle-Seilasie Haile-Selassie of Ethiopia and his wife, Lady Saba, members of the Order of the Pearl from Sulu, and Loretta Swit (Hot Lips Hoolihan in TV’s M.A.S.H.) were also in attendance.

The Surf Club’s Grand Ballroom was bejeweled and bedecked in rich, vibrant colors, lush floral centerpieces and whimsical touches - a carved turbaned servant, a garlanded trumpeting elephant, a feathered eagle (the official emblem of Poland) - creating a stunning blend of the cultures of Poland and India. The exquisite cuisine with light splashes of exotic spices, the exuberant entertainment by Polish and Indian dance troupes, and the visual smorgasbord of gorgeous and sparkling gowns, saris, black tie and diplomatic regalia swirling on the dance floor to the music of the Frank Hubbell Orchestra, all combined to ensure that this was going to be a night to remember.

Mrs. Loretta Haas, Mr. Richard Haas

Every year prestigious awards are conferred upon recipients whose accomplishments have gone beyond their chosen fields and have raised awareness of the contributions Poland and Polish Americans in the US and for those whom the Ball is celebrating - in this case India. Ms. Lisa Ray, the internationally acclaimed actress, activist and philanthropist was awarded the Institute’s highest honor, the Gold Medal, for championing human rights, advocating stem cell research and promoting her Polish-Indian heritage.

Mr. Harsh Arora, Mrs. Radhika Arora, Mr. Vinod Doddamani

Ms. Brigitte Notlof, Mr. Jan Karaszewski, Mrs. Izabella Karaszewski, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Mrs. Margareta de Gea Grezell

Standing L-R: Mr. Michael Murray, Ms. Helen Greer Seated L-R: Ms. Nina Mlodzinska de Rovira, Mr. Allen Bozek, Ms. Joyce Hine, Mrs. Anne McDougal, Ms. Marguerite Hark

Mrs. Valeria Rosenbloom with members of the Polish Folk Dancers “Polanie”

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Mrs. Anna Ukleja, Dr. Andrzej Ukleja, Mr. Jacob Ukleja, Ms. Bianka Ukleja

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Special Recognition: Count Matthew Meehan, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Count Rodney Hildebrant

His Excellency Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf, Mrs. Carmen Cason, Mayor Jim Cason of Coral Gables

Dr. Pat Riley, Dr. Dipnarine Maharaj, Dr. Wojciech Maksymowicz, Dr. Jacqueline Vitoria Gouvea Maharaj

Prince Ermias Haile Selassie, Lady Saba

HRH King Kigeli V of Rwanda, Mr. Matthew Dupee

Special Recognition: Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Dr. Cezary Kakol

Pearl of Sulu Award: Chancellor Andre Linholm, President Lech Walesa

Mr. Terrence Sarros, Count Jason Psaltides, Baron Kimon Andreou, Dr. Charles Drake

Hurricane SwaggeRaas Indian dance group

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Mr. Roy Meyeringh, Mrs. Miriann Meyeringh, Ms. Jessica Jacober, Mr. Paolo Guazzini

Mrs. Loretta Swit, Mr. Juan Carlos Avila

Mrs. Alex Verite, Mr. Jordi Verite

Mrs. Inga Luksza Senis, Mr. Francesco Senis, Ms. Debra Kondraczyk, Mrs. Agnieszka Gray, Mr. Maxmillian Stalmach, Ms. Ewa Nowaczek

Mr. Ali Torabi, Countess Bridgette Cooper, Mrs. Ellen Torabi, President Lech Walesa, Countess Barbara Pagowska Cooper, Mr. Hamid Torabi

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Mrs. Monica Morrill Yatsevitch, Mr. Gratian Yatsevitch

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Honorary Vice Consul Beata Paszyc, Mr. John Wayne, Jr.

Marquisa Maria Alonso, Marquis Alexander Montague

Ms. Oly Traina, Honorary Consul of Romania Victoria London, Mr. Gian Traina

Mr. Bogumil de Wojkowski, Ms. Alicja Schoonover

Mrs. Crystal Haas, Dr. Marek Chodakiewicz, Mrs. Wanda Urbanska

Dr. Januariusz Styperek, Dr. Janina Styperek

Standing L-R: Chancellor Boniface Benzinge, Mr. Marvin Lusky, Mr. Adam Doughterty, Mr. Jeff Greene, Mrs. Christina Greene, President Lech Walesa, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel Seated L-R: Mrs. Lorraine Lusky, HRH King Kigeli V, Mrs. Fabiana Miranda-Dougherty

Mr. Sergio Pino, Mrs. Adriana Pino

Standing L-R: Mr. Michael Alexander, Ms. Claudine Smurfit, Mr. Mario Faurot, Ms. Virginia Taylor, Mr. Pierre Laroqui, Ms. Adriana Paparo, Mr. Gul Moorjani Seated L-R: Ms. Brigitte Brody, Mrs. Madeline Hillsberg, Mr. Herbert Hillsberg, Ms. Julia Tirella

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Ms. Vislava Tylman, Mr. Steve Karski, Dr. Vikram Desai

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Ambassador Jagganuth Doddamani, Mrs. Doddamani, Mrs. Maria Ladowski

Mrs. Denise Wazny, Dr. Tomasz Wazny

Ms. Kim Fontaine-Skronski, Mrs. Christiane Dury Schieste, Mr. Mike Skronski

Mr. Bruce Friedman, Ambassador Paula Dobriansky

Ms. Lynne Schaefer, Mrs. Beata Paszyc, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Mrs. Jadwiga Gewert

Mr. Ignacio Guerrero, Mrs. Anna Lukaszek-Guerrero

Dr. Tomasz Osolkowski, Mrs. Magdalena Mangra, Dr. Ewa Jachimowicz, Dr. Basil Mangra, Mr. Adam Jachimowicz, Countess Barbara Pagonowska-Cooper, Dr. Miroslaw Piotrowski, Mr. Lukasz Osolkowski, Ms. Monica Mangra

Photography: Betty Alvarez, Gort Productions, Roman Kazmierczak (courtesy of Barbara Cooper and Agnes Gray), Beata Paszyc Published by The American Institute of Polish Culture, Inc. ● 1440 79th Street Causeway, Ste. 117 ● Miami, FL 33141 Ph: 305-864-2349 ● www.ampolinstitute.org ● info@ampolinstitute.org

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Mrs. Raquel Jarosz, Mr. Zbigniew Jarosz

Mrs. Lois Russo, Mr. Chris Russo, Ms. Myrna Holbrook, Ms. Anne Boley, Mr. Joe Hernandez, Mrs. Kim Hernandez

Dr. Vikram Desai, Dr. Renu Desai

Meehan were recognized for their tireless work with the orphans and homeless children in India through their organization, Sunil’s Home Orphanage. To date over 16,000 children in great need have been fed, clothed, educated and given a safe secure environment by Sunil’s Home.

The Lech Walesa Media Award was presented by President Walesa to Dr. Thaddeus Radzilowski, renowned historian, writer and Co-Founder, President of the Piast Institute for his enormous contributions in promoting Polish history and culture through educational programs and media. President Walesa was awarded The Grand Cordon of the Royal & Hashemite Order of the Pearl of Sulu for his ongoing endeavors towards world peace by Chancellor Andres Lindholm who presented in abstentia for Sultan Muedzul-Lail Tan Kiram, Royal House of Sulu. Dr. Cezary Kakol, a Chicago internist born in Poland, was recognized for his ongoing medical support and charitable contributions to Polish-American communities throughout Illinois.

The artistic program featured dance troupes performing Polish and Indian classic routines with contemporary twists. Both dance companies were adorned as befitting their country’s traditional costumes - velvet and fur for the Polish dancers, and silk and spangles for the Indian group - and gave rousing performances to the delight of all guests.

Hurricane SwaggeRaas, University of Miami’s premier Garba-Raas Team, have developed a signature swagger in their dance interpretation, and their skillful steps, energetic moves, and obvious passion and joy for the dance wowed the audience and transported all to the ancients courts of the fabulous Indian palaces.

Ambassador Schnepf presented Lady Blanka Rosenstiel with the lifetime achievement medal, “Benito Merito,” from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radoslaw Sikorski.

Many residents of Coral Gables have been long time friends and members of the Institute and were guests at the Ball, among them Honorable Mayor Jim and Carmen Cason, Marquis Alexander Montague and Marquisa Maria Alonso, and Mr. and Mrs. Amedeo and Miriam Guazzini.

Some of them were honored at the Ball. Mr. and Mrs. Paul and Teresa Lowenthal received the prestigious “Amicus Poloniae” from Ambassador Schnepf for their outstanding efforts promoting the development and cooperation between Poland and the US. The Lowenthals have made generous contributions, hosted Polish students in South Florida and are working with the John Paul II Center for Documentation and Research in Rome. Count Rodney Hildebrant and Count Matthew

The Polish American Folk Dance Company performed a fluid, elegant Mazur that evoked the centuries-old tradition of performing before the royal houses of Europe. The Mazur is an exhibition folk dance that is improvisatory in character, danced by couples who rotate around the dance hall and present a variety of graceful gestures to each other and the audience.

The 41st International Polonaise Ball celebrating Polish-Indian relations and friendship was a resounding success, and now we eagerly look forward to next year’s gala.

Standng L-R: Dr. Markus Thiel, Mrs. Landrum, Dr. Mark Rosenberg, Presiden FIU, Dean Ken Furton, Mrs. Furton, Mr. Paul Landrum Seated L-R: Dr. Rebecca Friedman, Ms. Pam Stack, Mrs. Rosalie Rosenberg, Dr. John Stack

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Mr. Janusz Burzynski, Mrs. Francis Burzynski, Mr. Kazimierz Korzeb, Mrs. Eva Korzeb, Mr. Eryk Paszkiewicz, Mrs. Katarzyna Paszkiewicz, Mr. Tomasz Paszkiewicz

Miss Amanda Rottermund, Mr. Jaroslaw Rottermund

Guests of Mrs. Ruby Bacardi

Count Rodney Hildebrant, Ms. Susan Bleemer, Count Matthew Meehan

Mr. Maxmilian Stalmach, Mrs. Agnieszka Gray, Mr. Keith Gray

Standng L-R: Mr. Francesco Soberis, Dr. Grazyna Kakol, Miss Anastasia Kakol, Dr. Cezary Kakol, Mrs. Patricia Zwierzycki, Dr. Jerome Zwierzycki Seated L-R Dr. Ewa Piacientile, Dr. Jolanta Tatara

Mr. Paul Lowenthal, Ms. Maggie Hernandez, Mrs. Alina Ammavuta, Mr. Raffaelle Ammavuta, Mrs. Padmina Durr

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Mr. Charles Falk, Mrs. Renata Ryan

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President Lech Walesa, Mrs. Rose Kruszewski

Mrs. Coco Palenque Torre, Mr. Venny Torre

Ms. Luccia Lowenthal, Ms. Francesca Lowenthal, Mrs. Lourdes Viciedo, Mrs. Teresa Lowenthal, Mr. Raffaelle Ammavuta, Mrs. Alina Ammavuta

Consul General Ajit Kumar of India

Mrs. Halina Malinski, Mr. Michael Alexander

Ms. Ursula Cieplak, Mr. Marek Chojnacki

Mrs. Virginia Aristazabal Cordoba, Marquis Alexander Montague

Mr. Mikolaj Bauer, Miss Melissa Szwanke, Mr. Douglas Evans

Countess Bridgette Cooper, Mrs. Magdalena Mangra, Dr. Basil Mangra, Mrs. Joan Kahn, Dr. Husman Kahn

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Good News 2012-2013

A Very Special Brunch Sunday, February 3, 2013

O

n Sunday, February 3rd, the Surf Club was once again the setting for a sumptuous buffet brunch. Archbishop Thomas Wenski was present and chatted with old and new friends, while the guests took photos with President Walesa, Lady Blanka, Ms. Swit and the year’s awardees.

The abundant brunch offerings included made to order omelets and fruit crepes, never-ending bakery goodies and platters of fresh fruits and crisp vegetables. It was a lovely way to wind down from the grandeur of the weekend and to make plans with friends for next year’s gala. The 42nd International Ball will be a tribute to Argentina and Poland and will be held on Saturday, February 1, 2014 at Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach.

Mr. Matthew Dupee, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Dr. Wojciech Maksymowicz

Dr. Jacqueline Vitoria Gouvea Maharaj, Consul Patrycja Grochecka, Hon. Consul Marek Pienkowski

Ms. Lynne Schaefer, Mr. Douglas Evans

Mr. Bronislaw Bajcar, Ms. Izabella Budys

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Mrs. Beata Paszyc, Miss Nel Velez-Paszyc, President Lech Walesa

Consul Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, Hon. Consul Krystyna-Maria Mikulanka, Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf

Mrs. Agnieszka Kedzierska-Ortega, Mrs. Ursula Johnson, Mrs. Magdalena Tomasino

Dr. Jolanta Tatara, Dr. Miroslaw Piotrowski, Mrs. Agnes Piotrowski

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Msgr. Antoni Czarnecki, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, with Polish Folk Dancers “Polanie”

Ms. Iga Henderson, Mr. Mikolaj Bauer, Mrs. Maria Lesniewska, Ms. Violetta Polak

Mrs. Danuta Kyparisis, Ms. Margareta de Gea Grezell, Dr. Jerzy Kyparisis, Mrs. Maria Czulinska

Ms. Helena Kolenda, Dr. Pat Riley, Baron Jason Psaltides

A Polish American Film Library

By Joseph W. Zurawski

T

he time has arrived. Rather than listen to complaints about how Polish Americans are Americans are ignored in film and television presentations, it is time to start accumulating the thousands of U.S. films and television programs with some reference to Poland, a Polish name or comments about a Polish topic. By my count, there were over 12,000 at the end of 2012, but unfortunately many include jokes, slurs, and unflattering statements about Poles and Poland.

While films made in Poland are celebrated, and deservedly so, no festival or special observance has yet occurred which featured films that reflect the Polish American presence in America. I contend the time has arrived to make such an event possible. There are many films with a clear message.

Both Ramzinski (Robinson) and White are played by Mickey Rourke. Hollywood producers apparently believe Rourke is the epitome of representing a Polish American character. He also played Henry Chianski (a reflection on the life of Charles Bukowski) in The Barfly (1987) and Joseph Cybulski, a member of a very close family who was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident, in Act of Love (1980). Rourke was scheduled to play Richard Kuklinski in The Iceman, the most prolific contract killer in American history, but another studio released a film in 2013 about Kuklinski with the same title.

The main character in Year of the Dragon (1985) is Stanley White. He lives in a Polish neighborhood with his Polish wife near a Polish church and Polish bar with Polish spoken on the streets.

A Polish wake, with prayers recited in Polish, is one of the longest scenes in the movie, and in another scene White reflects on whether changing his Polish name was worth whatever he thought he would gain.

Water for Elephants (2011) features Jacob Jankowski and the sacrifices his parents made for his education. His identity with the Polish language is also featured in a prominent, somewhat curious, way.

Immigrants Interestingly, the first full length Communist film produced in the U.S., The Passaic Textile Strike (1926), featured a very sympathetic account of an immigrant Polish American family and its struggles to earn a living wage.

Polish American Identity In The Wrestler (2008) Robin Ramzinski, better know as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, flies high into the air in his final wrestling match as the movie ends. Will he live as Ramzinski or die as Robinson?

All his life he kept the name Ramzinski but tried to do everything possible to find meaning as Robinson. The viewer is left to decide not how, but who—Ramzinski or Robinson—will live or die, and try to determine why.

author, Tennessee Williams, featured Dr. Cukrowicz, a brilliant psycho-surgeon, the Polish American community was silent. Stanley Kowalski protested vehemently that he is not a Polack while Dr. Cukrowicz explained that his name means “smith” in Polish. It is time to give both films a more honest evaluation.

Mickey Rourke

Gran Torino (2008) tells the story of Walt Kowalski and his dedication to a lifetime of hard work. After he retires, he protects, preserves, and does everything possible to enrich his “turf” for the benefit of his neighborhood.

Banacek (1972-1974) was a character featured in 17 movies on NBC; a suave, witty, clever investigator who is called into criminal cases others cannot solve.

In A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Stanley Kowalski was vilified by many in the Polish American community for his coarseness. However, when the same

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The welcome and the helping hand Americans extended to Poles who left or were forced out of war-torn Poland or Communist-controlled Poland, is most evident in New York Town (1941), The Greenie (1942) and The Stars are Singing (1953). An immigrant Polish American dad, intent on his son going to college, learns that his son has other opportunities in The Big Leaguer (1953).

More recent impressions of Poles seeking the American dream are reflected in Happy New York (1977) and God/Man/ Accordion (2008).

U.S. Support for Poland during World War II The invasion of Poland is dramatically told in Siege (1940). Nominated for an Academy Award, the film has been placed in the National Film Registry

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war effort is total. Clearly, by the end of the film, he is one of the heroes - he saves the plane, the men on board, and the mission.

Marlon Brando

as one of the most important films ever made.

Two U.S. films presented in Polish - Ostatni, Ten (1941) and Z Dymem Pozarow (1941) - uplifted the spirits of Polish Americans and their determination to help Poles in all ways possible and all proceeds were donated to Polish War victims. Unfortunately for Poland, after the Soviet Union became America’s ally, Hollywood producers were probably directed to present Russian (Communist) efforts against Nazi Germany in a positive tone. There was little official U.S. sympathy for Poland. Even the playing of the Polish national anthem was forbidden on radio broadcasts. Thus, some Polish American representations in films were somewhat distorted - Polish American names, attitudes, and support for the war effort were often confusing, if not outright misleading.

Nevertheless, films such as Air Force (1943) were released and begin with a negative view of a Polish American who emerges as one of the heroes of a wartime mission. Winnocki is in flight school, is blamed for an accident, and he is discharged. Bitter and disgruntled, he is called into service as a gunner for a flight to the Philippines. His attitude begins to change during the flight when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. After the pilot of the plane is wounded, Winnocki takes control of the plane and lands it safely. His commitment to the Good News 2012-2013

Lt. Philip “Red” Pianatowski and his wife make many personal sacrifices and help others throughout the film, In the Meantime, Darling (1944). Pianatowski guides a bewildered Irish officer about to be married while his wife tells the quite wealthy bride-to-be about the hardships the war is inflicting on everyone. The point is made that Pianatowski “earned” his rank while the wealthy future father-in-law of his Irish buddy tried to make service less stressful for his future son-in-law.

When the husbands are called into active duty, the newlywed is convinced

by Mrs. Pianatowski to work in the defense industry to help the war effort.

cago’s South side. He was shot dead at the age of 29. After services at the Polish National Church, his funeral was attended by more than 20,000 mourners. Perhaps much of this is reflected in My Buddy (1944), a film difficult to obtain. There’s a Polish American alcoholic hit man in You Kill Me (2007) and a Polish American hit woman in Prizzi’s Honor (1985).

On the fringe of “gangsterism” we have Mickey One (1965) who has all kinds of problems with the mob as does Mr. Soft Touch (1949) who changed his Polish name to Joe Miracle. Miracle had to steal his own money back from the mob, and he donated it all to an agency where his knowledge of the Polish language is helpful.

Westerns

Kozzakowski is one of the few survivors of the rigorous training for an important mission in Gung Ho! The Story of Carlson’s Makin Island Raiders (1943).

He distinguishes himself by taking over a steamroller and knocking down a radio relay station. The heroic and much appreciated efforts of the Polish underground are vividly shown in Missiles from Hell (1958). Originally a British production, the film now enjoys U.S. distribution.

Cowboys are told about Poland by Trooper Chanofsky in War Paint (1953) and learn about respecting one’s Polish heritage in the Missourians (1950).

Polish American Gangsters

1941 (1979), The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953), Adventures of Kitty Cobb (1914), Age of Innocence (1993), Aliens (1986), Along Came Polly (2004), Animal House

Tim Oberta, the one enemy Al Capone really feared, was a bootlegger on Chi-

A Movie Sampler Many other films are worth a closer look. Each has contributed to forming an image of Polish Americans. Here’s a small sampling of some blockbusters and popular movies:

Robert Pattison as Jacob Jankowski in Water for Elephants

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(1978), Barb Wire (1996), Battle of the Bulge (1965), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), The Big Lebowski (1998), Biloxi Blues (1988), Black Hawk Down (2002), Blade Runner (1982), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Caine Mutiny (1954), The Departed (2006), Days of Thunder (1990), The Dead Zone (1983), and Death Wish II (1982).

You may like or hate and wonder how or why these movies were made, but Polish Americans should not continue to ignore them. Check out the Internet Movie Data Base by typing “Polish American” or “Polish,” then “Kowalski” or another Polish name, and select “Character.” You

will quickly discover additional titles.

Launching a Polish American central resource center to collect and make available these films and the thousands of television programs with a Polish American reference will go a long way for many of us to better accept others’ perceptions of us according to what they view on movie and television screens. We will be in a better position to influence Hollywood and television producers to reflect the Polish American identity, and what it means, more accurately and honestly. Let the discussion begin in earnest!

For readers who want to learn more about this fascinating proposal, please contact the author directly at jwz1415@aol.com

Joseph W. Zurawski is author of Poland: The Captive Satellite: A Study in National Psychology; Polish American History and Culture: A Classified Bibliography; Polish Chicago: Our History, Our Recipes; six regional histories including the centennial history of Niles, Illinois; and Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding. Mr. Zurawski has also developed educational materials for several publishers on the Polish American experience and taught Polish American history and culture at Wright College and Triton College. He served as the National Director for the Roman Catholic Union of America and was the President of the Polish American Council of Polish Cultural Clubs.

Walesa. Man of Hope

A

ndrzej Wajda’s biographical film, Walesa. Man of Hope, about the legendary Solidarity leader, had its world premier at the 70th International Film Festival in Venice on September 5, 2013.

It was shown for the first time in Poland on September 21st just eight days before President Lech Walesa’s 70th birthday.

The President of Poland and many dignitaries, politicians and celebrities attended the premier at the National Theater in Warsaw.

Agnieszka Grochowska, Mrs. Danuta Walesa, President Lech Walesa, Robert Wieckiewicz, Andrzej Wajda

The film is the third of Wajda’s trilogy, preceded by Man of Marble and Man of Iron, and portrays how disappointment with communism among workers in Poland helped bring the system down.

President. In this film based on an interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, Walesa -- played by Robert Wieckiewicz -- looks back on his times in prison, his negotiations with communist authorities and his 1983 Nobel Peace Prize.

“Wajda always had a prophetic vision in his movies and here he manages to perfectly capture a message for the new generations - how to have a hero of our time,” Walesa told reporters in Venice.

“I’m still active. The things we were fighting for are being realized right now,” said Walesa, who continues to lobby for human rights around the world.

President Walesa also said he had seen all of Wajda’s films, and over the years “they gave me strength to keep going.

Even when we were losing there was a message in the films that said we could change things. I wouldn’t be who I am today without Wajda’s movies. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did.”

The Venice Film Festival Director, Alberto Barbera, summed up Wajda’s enormous impact in cinema. “Wajda is not just the most emblematic director in post-war Polish filmmaking.

He is the director who has been capable [...] of raising the most decisive and important questions about the history of his country, and consequently, of Europe in its entirety, inviting us to reflect on the critical relationship between personal experiences and those of an entire nation, between the anguish that often befalls individual destinies and the weight of the collective task they are called upon to accomplish.”

Walesa led a bloodless revolution to end communism in Poland in 1989, at a time when more than 40,000 Soviet troops were stationed on Polish soil. A year later, he was elected 59

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Join Lady Blanka Rosenstiel in

SUPPORTING THE NEXT GENERATION OF

POLISH LEADERS

LIVE & LEARN IN PRAGUE

With The Fund for American Studies

This scholarship fund, created by Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, provides funding for college students from Poland to attend the American Institute on Political and Economic Systems (AIPES) in Prague, Czech Republic each summer. The premier leadership program, sponsored by The Fund for American Studies, is designed to explore the political, economic and cultural issues of the world as it grows under democratic principles. AIPES embodies diversity and culture as its cornerstone to educating future leaders. Make a contribution today, and provide a student from Poland with an unparalleled educational experience. Contact Ed Turner at 202-986-0384 or eturner@TFAS.org to contribute to the Lady Blanka Rosenstiel Scholarship Fund today!

Visit www.TFAS.org to learn about all of the programs sponsored by The Fund for American Studies.

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Polish Students Sponsored at AIPES

By Matthew Kwasiborski and Brigit Moore

L

ady Blanka Rosenstiel, Founder and President of the American Institute of Polish Culture, has been sponsoring Polish students going to the American Institute on Political and Economic Systems (AIPES) since 1999. Twenty-five percent of the Polish students (30 of 113) who have benefited from this great academic and cultural experience have received scholarship support from Lady Blanka Rosenstiel.

AIPES was launched by The Fund for American Studies (TFAS), in partnership with Charles University in 1993. The program takes place each summer in Prague, Czech Republic. It was the first international program organized by TFAS, which now hosts other programs around the world for students in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.

Matylda Gerber, Piotr Popeda

TFAS hosted 50 alumni at the conclusion of the AIPES 2013 Institute. These alumni gathered in Prague to celebrate the founding of TFAS International exactly twenty years ago, and they joined the class for a weekend of educational and networking opportunities.

This past summer, AIPES 2013 welcomed 101 students from 33 countries to Prague for the 21st annual Institute, running from July 7 to August 5, 2013. AIPES was pleased to have two outstanding Polish students, Matylda Gerber and Piotr Popeda, join us for the summer. While attending AIPES, Matylda and Piotr, along with the rest of the AIPES class, studied conflict management, the political economy of liberty, and political philosophy. Four outstanding faculty members from Georgetown University, the University of Arizona, and King’s College London participated this year.

Matylda, Piotr and their colleagues also had a great opportunity to present their cultural heritage to the rest of the group. Each year AIPES hosts a cultural presentations evening, so that the students are able to share their countries history and culture.

On August 5th, the AIPES 2013 students attended a formal graduation ceremony at the beautiful 14th century Carolinum, a great symbol of Charles University. We were honored to have the Honorable Iveta Radicova, former Prime Minister of Slovakia, as our keynote commencement speaker. As new graduates of AIPES, Matylda and Piotr now join the ranks of nearly 14,000 alumni of TFAS, representing more than a hundred nations around the world.

In addition to the challenging curriculum, students attended several guest lectures given by prominent regional figures. The guest lecture series included a presentation by Dr. Petr Just, prorector of Metropolitan University Prague; Ms. Martina Mareckova, of the Prague Business Journal; Ms. Martina Olberatova, TFAS alumna and entrepreneur; Mr. Sadi Shannah, Professor of Arab Relations at Anglo-American University; Dr. Cyril Svoboda, former Czech Foreign Minister; Dr. Pavol Demes, former Slovak Foreign Minister; Mr. Franak Viachorka, prominent Belarusian dissident working at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and Ms. Eliska Coolidge of Coolidge Consulting.

The Fund for American Studies wishes to thank the American Institute of Polish Culture, especially Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, for their continued support of Polish students attending AIPES. We are proud of all of our Polish alumni, and we hope that the future leaders of Poland continue to attend AIPES thanks to the generous contributions from the American Institute of Polish Culture.

“We are proud of all of our Polish alumni, and we hope that the

future leaders of Poland continue to attend AIPES thanks

to the generous contributions from Lady Blanka Rosenstiel.”

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The Polish Rider by Rembrandt

By Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski

B

y the end of the Golden Age of Poland, about 1600, the family of Dutchman, Hendrick van Uylenburgh (1587 – 1661) emigrated to Kraków, then capital of the Polish Noble’s Republic composed of the union of Poland and Lithuania. Hendrick was trained as a painter and also worked as an art buyer for the Polish king, who served as the chief executive of the Polish Nobles’ Republic. Around 1612, Hendrick moved to Gdańsk and then in 1625 returned to the Netherlands, settling in the capital of Amsterdam.

Van Uylenburgh took over the business of Cornelis van der Voort and became an influential Dutch Golden Age art dealer, helping to launch the careers of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Govert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol and other local painters. He employed the artists in his own studio, including Rembrandt who, in 1631, moved into van Uylenburgh’s house, which was adjacent to the home Rembrandt later lived in and now serves as the Rembrandt House Museum.

The Polish Rider

Ogiński advanced to the rank of colonel or in Polish pulkownik in 1657, served as Wojewoda of Troki (from 1670) and Grand Chancellor of Lithuania (from 1684). As a representative of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in union with Poland, he was the signatory of the Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686 with the Tsardom of Russia.

Rembrandt became chief painter of the studio and in 1634 married van Uylenburgh’s niece, Saskia van Uylenburgh, sister of Antje van Uylenburgh who was married to theological Professor, Jan Ogończyk Makowski (Johannes Maccovius).

It is believed that Marcjan Aleksander Ogiński is the subject of a much debated work, Rembrandt’s Lisowczyk or The Polish Rider painted (c. 1655). The image was painted at the time when Ogiński was studying in the Netherlands. It has been suggested that Ogiński had the portrait painted on the eve of his return to his military unit during the devastating Swedish invasions of Poland known as “the Deluge.”3

Jan Makowski, who was born in Łobżenica, Poland, was a nobleman and a Polish Reformed theologian. After visiting various universities (1607 in Danzig, 1610 in Marburg, 1611 in Heidelberg) and as the tutor of young Polish nobles (including the children of Marcjan Ogiński), his controversial ideology put him in dispute with Polish Jesuits and Socinians-Anti-Trinitarians over the years. In 1613, Makowski entered the University of Franeker in the Netherlands where he became “privat-docent” in 1614 and Professor of Theology in 1615. In later years, his fame attracted many students from Poland to Franeker University. Makowski-Maccovius died in June 24, 1644 in the Netherlands.

Another member of the Ogiński family, Michał Kleofas, was born in Guzów, Żyrardów County near Warsaw. His father Andrius was a Lithuanian nobleman and governor of Troki, Lithuania. Taught at home, young Ogiński excelled especially at music and foreign languages. Kleofas Ogiński served as an adviser to King Stanisław August Poniatowski and supported him during the Great Sejm of 1788–1792. In 1790 he was dispatched to Hague as a diplomatic representative of Poland in the Netherlands and was the Polish agent in Constantinople and Paris. He was nominated to the office of the Treasurer in Lithuania in 1793, and during the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, he commanded his own unit.

Marcjan Aleksander Ogiński (1632 –1690) was a Polish nobleman, a member of a family of polonized boyars1. He was a military commander and a statesman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth2.

1 A boyar was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Bulgarian, Moscovian, Kievan Russian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes, from the 10th century to the 17th century.

2 It should be noted that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was basically a Slavic state, using the language of Belrus (Białoruski) as its official language rather than the currently recognized official language of Lithuania.

3 Recently Thomas M. Prymak published an article “Rembrandt’s painting Polish Rider in it’s East European Context,” in The Polsh Review vol. LVI. 2011 no.3, in which the author quotes the evaluation of the painting, now known in Poland as Lisowczyk, by professor Zdzisław Żygulski, Jr. of Kraków entitled: “Lisowczyk – A Study of Costumes and Weapons,” (Bulletin de Musee National de Varsovie), VI, 2/3 (1965), 43-67.

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Andrzej Jerzy Czartoryski introduced him to Tsar Alexander I, who made Ogiński a Russian Senator. Ogiński tried in vain to convince the Tsar to rebuild the Polish State.

He moved abroad in 1815 and died in 1833 in Florence.

After the insurrection was suppressed, Kleofas Ogiński emigrated to France, where he sought Napoleon’s support for the Polish cause. He saw the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw by the Emperor as a stepping stone to the eventual full independence of Poland, and wrote and dedicated his only opera, Zelis et Valcour, to Napoleon. As a composer he is best known for his Polonaise, A Farewell to the Homeland (Pożegnanie Ojczyzny) written on the occasion of his emigration to Western Europe after the failure of the Kosciuszko Insurrection in 1794. In 1810, Ogiński withdrew from political activity in exile and, disappointed with Napoleon, returned to Wilno, Lithuania. There,

A Farewell to the Homeland (Pożegnanie Ojczyzny) and The Polish Rider (Lisowczyk) are cherished by American Polonia.

Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski (born September 3, 1921 in Lwów, Poland) was educated in Poland, Belgium, and the U.S. An inventor and civil / industrial engineer with 50 patents to his credit, Pogonowski is also a prolific writer on Polish and European history, author of several historical atlases, and an accomplished lexicographer (writer of dictionaries). His editorials, reviews and columns have appeared in hundreds of publications and online.

Pogonowski’s work has its critics - some have described him as a politically motivated amateur, a conspiratologist, and a leading and disturbing representative of ethnonationalist historiography.

Nonetheless, he is a tireless advocate of spreading knowledge about Poland and Polish-related data.

Did you know…

One of the oldest health resorts in Europe, known for its curing waters, is located in the mountains of southwestern Poland. Ladek-Zdroj’s thermal mineral waters rich in flourides, sulphides, hydrogen and radon have been providing medicinal treatments for man for hundreds of years. The physical housing for the springs have been destroyed and rebuilt a few times over the centuries, but the waters, the surrounding dense forests and stimulating climate ensure excellent conditions for the production of essential oils, and have never lost their healing powers.

Although the springs had been treating locals and travelers passing through the mountains for several centuries, it wasn’t until 1498 that a spa was officially developed to offer the benefits of balneotherapy (a therapy using everything related to medicinal treatments with the mineral waters, muds, sands, indigenous plant extracts, etc. of the spa’s region) to a wider public. Over the ensuing decades, many crowned royals, high ranking dignitaries, heads of state and other distinguished clientele received the treatments with excellent results. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, was a frequent guest in the late 18th century, and American President John Quincy Adams and Russia’s Tsar Alexander I visited in the early 1800’s.

The balneary or bathing room(s) have gone through a number of owners, name changes and updates since the 13th century, but in recent years Ladek-Zdroj has enjoyed visitors from all around the world seeking a peaceful retreat, a natural cure or a continuation of a healthy lifestyle. The main buildings, formally erected in 1678, still retain the beautiful intricate architecture befitting guests from every walk of life.

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Ambassador of Poland in Miami

H

is Excellency Ryszard Schnepf, the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland, admittedly likes the Sunshine State, as he visited Miami again (in February 2013 he was the guest of honor at the 41st International Polonaise Ball). This time the Ambassador participated in the 34th Hemispheric Congress on May 2023, 2013 organized by the Latin Chamber of Commerce of USA. The Polish American Chamber of Commerce has been collaborating with the Latin chambers to stimulate business among Poland, US and Latin American countries. Dr. Pawel Pietrasienski, Minister Counselor and Head of Trade

& Investment Section and Mr. Artur Grela, Second Secretary, at Trade & Investment Section of the Embassy of Poland, accompanied Ambassador Schnepf and held meetings to discuss the development of business opportunities.

Lady Blanka Rosenstiel hosted an elegant evening for these special guests at her home. Members of the American Institute of Polish Culture, The Chopin Foundation and the Polish American Chamber of Commerce had a chance to discuss business and art. Mr. Augustin Anievas gave a short yet moving concert featuring Chopin and Liszt piano compositions.

Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf, Mrs. Maria Ladowski, Dr. Januariusz Styperek, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Mr. Leszek Ladowski, Dr. Janina Styperek, Mr. Ludwik Wnekowicz

Mrs. Olga Melin, Ms. Renata Ryan

Mrs. Beata Paszyc, Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf

Mrs. Frankie Hipp, Dr. William Hipp, Mrs. Carol Anievas

Mr. Artur Grela, Mr. Robert Stafecki, Dr. Pawel Pietrasienski, Mr. Agustine Anievas

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The Polish Language in the US Today

By Thaddeus C. Radzilowski, Ph.D.

T

he US Census Bureau has just published a new study titled, Language Use in the United States: 2011, based on the results of the 2010 American Survey. Of the 381 languages spoken in the United States as a home language, Polish ranks as the 14th most frequently used by persons over 5 years of age.

Almost one quarter of Americas over 5 years old - 21% or a total of 60,577,020 persons - report speaking a language other than English at home. Polish speakers represent 1% of that 60.5 million or 608,333 persons. This is about 8.5% of the total of the Polish-American population over 5 years of age.

Interesting enough this is more than the total of foreign born Poles in the US; in fact there are over 100,000 more Polish speakers than native Poles in the US, which is about 500,000 (according to the US Census).

The language picture is complicated by the fact that some foreign born Poles, especially those who have a non-Polish spouse, no longer use Polish at home. The latter is also true of American-born Polish speakers who know and continue to use the Polish language in other settings but who do not use it at home. There are also small numbers of Polish speakers who learned it as a foreign language and employ it for business or or academic purposes. So the actual number of Polish speakers over 5 years of age is probably well over 700,000 people.

change the use of Polish in the US will continue to decline.

Even with some improvement, it will clearly not reach earlier levels of use in the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, we must seek ways to assure that Polish maintains a presence in the United States, such as providing innovative tools to teach it in class rooms and via electronic media, and extended exchange visits to Poland. It is one of the handful of languages recognized by modern world-class cultures. As Poland’s role continues to increase as an important player in European and world politics, and as a growing economic power, Polish is a language resource the United States needs. Ironically, the growth of the importance of Poland, and a greater knowledge of Polish culture, can stimulate an interest in the language. Finally, even if not spoken by the majority of the community, it is also a major symbolic factor in maintaining Polish-American identity.

The maintenance of the presence of the Polish language in the United States is a task that must be undertaken jointly by Poland and Polonia. The 2010 Piast survey showed that Polish-American leaders across the country ranked preservation of Polish language and culture first among the issues facing the Polish community. It is time to take this to task.

Of those who reported speaking Polish at home 60% indicated they also spoke English “very well,” while 23% said they spoke English “well.” Thus only 16.6% of Polish speakers indicated some problem with English fluency: 13.8% said they did not speak English “well” and 2.8% reported no ability to use English at all. It appears that Polish speakers in the US are relatively well-integrated into the English-speaking world and have few or no problems in using English in their daily lives.

With the decline of emigration from Poland to the US and its redirection to the EU (Polish is now the second most commonly spoken language in England), the number of Polish speakers in the US has slowly declined. Since 1980 the use of Polish has shown a 25.9% decline as the chart below shows:

Polish Speakers

1980 820,647

1990 723,483

2000 667,414

2010 608,333

The decline in the number of Polish speakers is significant but it is much lower than the decline of the numbers of speakers of German (55.2%), Yiddish (51.0%), and Italian (33.4%) over the same period. It is likely that unless immigration trends Good News 2012-2013

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Thaddeus C. Radzilowski, Ph.D. is an award-winning historian focusing on Poland and Central and Eastern European nations. He has lectured in Europe and North America and has published more than 100 monographs, journal articles, book chapters and scholarly papers. Dr. Radzilowski is the President and co-founder of the Piast Institute, a national organization dedicated to Polish and Polish American affairs. His work includes the groundbreaking study, Polish Americans Today (with Dominik Stecula), and he has also written, produced and consulted on radio and television productions and films.

In 1991, Dr. Radzilowski was named to President William Clinton’s advisory transition team on US policy in East and Central Europe. In 1999, he received the Cavalier’s Cross of the Polish Order of Merit awarded by the President of Poland for distinguished contributions to the dissemination of Polish culture. In 2013, he was presented the Lech Walesa Media Award by President Walesa at the 41st International Polonaise Ball hosted by AIPC in Miami.

Self-Made Man of Literature Witold Gombrowicz (1904 - 1969)

By Marta Gierczyk

B

runo Schulz, Poland’s highly regarded prose stylist of the 20th century, called Witold Gombrowicz a ‘‘relentless hunter of cultural lies.” Susan Sontag, an American culturist and intellectual, labeled him as “brilliant” and Milan Kundera, the Czech Republic’s most revered writer, ranked him among Joyce and Proust as one of the seminal figures in modern literature. These enthusiastic affirmations, however, weren’t immediate and it took Gombrowicz more than a decade before he emerged as a writer of international reputation.

Two of Gombrowicz’s stories written in the decade between 1920 and 1930, Ferdydurke and Memoirs Of A Time Of Immaturity, were dismissed as the anti-Polish “ravings of a madman” by critics of the time. When he departed Poland in 1939, he was perceived as a minor literary figure whose works were banned in post-war Poland for as long as the communist bloc existed in the country.

Witold Gombrowicz

Today, Witold Gombrowicz is lauded by literary critics and historians for his eccentricity, his mockery of social conventions, his absurdist humor and his puzzling linguistic games. What often gets overlooked is the fact that he was also one of the most vivid cultural links between Poland and Argentina.

The story of Gombrowicz’s displacement in Buenos Aires has all the elements of a poor, unknown writer in exile, whose life was completely changed by events out of his control. It all began in the summer of 1939 with his fate-driven voyage to Argentina, almost literally on the eve of the WWII outbreak. The day after the transatlantic liner, Chrobry [Brave], arrived in Buenos Aires, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact, and a week later the Nazis invaded Poland. In deciding between two alternatives – returning home to the burgeoning outrage of war or remaining in Argentina unable to speak Spanish and almost penniless – Gombrowicz made an apparently impulsive decision not to go back to Poland. He reminisced about this turn of the events in his threevolume Diary: I left for Argentina accidentally, for only two weeks. If by some quirk of fate the war had not broken out during those two weeks, I would have returned to Poland—but I did not conceal that when the door was bolted and I was locked in Argentina, it was as if I had finally heard my own voice.”

And a little later: What happened? Yes. I have to confess this: under the influence of the war, the strengthening of the “inferior” and regressive powers, an eruption of some sort of belated youth took place in me. I fled to youth in the face of defeat and slammed the door.

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Good News 2012-2013

In 1952 he wrote to Jerzy Giedroyc, the director of Kultura. ‘‘I must become my own commentator; even better, my own theatrical director. I have to create Gombrowicz the thinker, Gombrowicz the genius, Gombrowicz the cultural demonologist, and many other necessary Gombrowiczes.’’ Initially appearing in the form of monthly entries for Kultura, Diary begins with one of literature’s most memorable openings: “Monday Me. Tuesday Me. Wednesday Me. Thursday Me.”

An adaptation of Trans-Atlantyk at a theater in Gdynia named after Gombrowicz. The production was directed by Waldemar Śmigasiewicz (2004).

“Fleeing to youth” certainly spared him the horrors of wartime and left him thrilled about the prospect of an exotic autonomy, but it also locked him in a foreign landscape as a Polish émigré writer who was to experience identity and money struggles like never before. Nonetheless, the love affair between Gombrowicz and Argentina lasted 24 years, and although passionate, it wasn’t all hearts and flowers.

While providing a vivid account of Witold’s day-to-day existence in Argentina, his diary departs from the traditional form of a journal and leans toward a series of cohesive essays, short notes, and polemics with a truly encyclopedic range of themes; from the Catholic Church and Marxism, through the provincialism of the Polish literary world and liberation of the ‘I’ from the ‘we’, to homosexuality, art, and existentialism.

During the first years of his bohemian life in Buenos Aires Gombrowicz teetered on the edge of poverty. He managed to live from the few cents a day he cadged from handouts and with the occasional support from friends. Focused on expanding his connections with young Argentinian writers and carrying on his literary battle against clichés, particularly the totalitarianism of social expectations, Gombrowicz participated very little in the local Polish émigré life. But he did write, and with the help of a few Latin-Americans (who did not know a word of Polish), Witold (who barely knew Spanish) undertook the heroic challenge of translating his story Ferdydurke into Spanish while sitting at tables of local cafés. It’s ironic that this undertaking was a farce worthy of Ferdydurkian absurdity. Despite all the effort, however, Argentinians didn’t seem interested in the work of a foreigner they had never heard of and so the 1947 publication of the Spanish version of Fedydurke was ignored in literary circles. While this first serious letdown was a foreshadowing of almost a decade of professional obscurity, Gombrowicz never stopped writing.

Although his acute satirical vision did not spare anyone, his writings soon became noticed and were greatly appreciated, for the biting mockery was not only hilarious but also profoundly revealing. This long awaited recognition allowed him to leave the detested position at Banco Polacco and finally focus only on writing. Under these favorable conditions, Gombrowicz completed his last two novels - Pornografia and Cosmos – the latter winning the 1967 International Prize for Literature.

One of the constant themes present in both Witold’s life and work, is his own ambivalent attitude toward Poland and everything that is Polish. This perplexing dichotomy is most accurately synthesized in one of his diary entries, where he describes himself as “Terribly Polish and terribly rebellious against Poland.” Despite his omnipresent criticism of Polish culture, the facts tell a different story. His principal works were written on emigration and though he never returned to Poland after leaving in 1939, Gombrowicz refused to write in any language other than Polish (in the tradition of Nabokov who still wrote in Russian when he lived in Berlin).

Those first years in Argentina were wonderfully liberating yet cruelly bitter for Gombrowicz. He amusingly described the years in Trans-Atlantyk – a short novel written during work hours at the Polish Bank [BancoPolaco] in Buenos Aires, with the consent of the bank’s director who happened to be Witold’s friend. This position was the only salaried work of his life, and although it bored him to tears, he kept it for almost a decade.

His portrayal of Argentinian life is no less contradictory. The moving descriptions of loneliness, poverty, and the alienating

While still at the bank and inspired by The Journals of André Gide, Gombrowicz set his mind on creating a self-inventing diary that allowed him to say a few years later. “People buy a diary because the author is famous, while I wrote mine in order to become famous.”

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cultural elite are intertwined with a fascination and vivid imagery of the urban scenery of Buenos Aires and the rural beauty of other parts of South America. This is what Gombrowicz notes after his first encounter with Jorge Luis Borges:

ing my impatience, pride, and anger, which were the consequence of painful egotism and restrictions in foreignness, what was the possibility of understanding between me and that intellectual, aesthetic, and philosophical Argentinian? I was fascinated by the lower stratum in that country and this was the upper crust. I was enthralled by the darkness of the Retiro, they, by the lights of Paris. For me, that unconfessed, silent youth of the country swept me up like a melody or like the herald of a melody.”

Bypassing technical difficulties—my unruly Spanish and Borges’s faulty pronunciation (he spoke quickly and Witold Gombrowicz: Diary, Yale University Press, 2012 incomprehensibly)—bypass-

Regardless of the locale and mores of his stories, whether about Poland, Argentina, or any other country, all of Gombrowicz’s writing is in essence about man’s most difficult battle - to remain one’s self. “My entire life I have fought not to be a ‘Polish writer’ but myself, Gombrowicz.”

Marta Gierczyk holds a MA in Literary Studies from the University of Silesia in Poland. She is a college level lecturer and a marketing professional, published in the Literary Memoir. A Quarterly on the History and Criticism of the Polish Literature. Marta is currently working at The Center for Literature and Theater at Miami Dade College, as well as for The Miami Beach Adult Education Center. She is an avid photographer and a devoted fan of the films by Woody Allen, who deeply appreciates dry humor and the absurd.

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Good News 2012-2013

Cinema: A Polish Source of Survival

By Paul Kmiec

Although the film school in Lodz offers varying majors from acting, directing, and musical composition, it is their peculiar emphasis on cinematography itself that contributes considerably to their uniqueness and integrity. No film studies institution has produced so many sought after and award-winning cinematographers in

Good News 2012-2013

Irsay

S cholarship

Recipient

Ashes and Diamonds

history than the Polish Film School. In the last ten years the School has been responsible for three Academy Award nominations just for best cinematography and one win in 1983. In addition, the school has produced three major Academy Award-winning directors - Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polanski, and Krzysztof Kieslowski - as well as several Palm d’Or and BAFTA winners.

Poland continues to produce exceptionally well-crafted films and has been hailed by many film critics as one of the few countries, alongside France and South Korea, challenging Hollywood to transform their ancient, rigid story formulas. Its reputation speaks for itself and although I may be biased, as I am both of Polish decent and a student filmmaker, I believe the Polish people have a special command of the cinema.

Poland has always been in a struggle for survival. The very existence of this country has been in jeopardy over the last 2,000 years and on several occasions throughout history, Poland ceased to exist on the map due to being partitioned by conquering countries.

Harriet

In 1955 Poland made enormous advances in recovering their industry from the all-governing authoritarianism.

It was director Andrzej Wajda, whose films such as A Generation and Ashes and Diamonds, challenged the government’s pre-established Communistic formulas of the day while exploring the theme of the individual and illustrating multi-dimensional characters, a rarity in Polish cinema up until then. In fact it was Wajda’s 1970’s films, such as Man of Marble, that served as the cornerstone for the Solidarity movement, which brought Poles their newfound freedom and a turning point for Poland’s economy.

Since the fall of Communism in 1989, Polish cinema has become increasingly recognized as a distinct talent to be reckoned with as their camera work and photography are always pushing boundaries and are celebrated as belonging to the highest caliber.

Essay

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olish and Eastern European cinematography is venerated around the world by filmmakers from all cultures. As it is, Poland is the only country in the world that dedicates an entire week’s festivities to the celebration of the art of cinematography, and to the work of some of the world’s most meticulous and very frequently under-appreciated artists in the industry. The festival, CAMERIMAGE has been an annual event since 1993 and for nearly ten years has been held in Lodz, the home of Poland’s distinguished National Film School. Historically, Poland has an ever-prominent and seemingly intrinsic talent for the photographic art of motion pictures.

During the Second World War, Poland’s film industry was almost economically shattered and suffered even further under the unremitting oppression of Stalinism.

Post-war films were generally very limited in their dramatic range and were nearly always about the occupation. It wasn’t until 1948 when renowned Polish actor, Leon Schiller, established the Polish Film School in Lodz, which to this day is recognized as one of the most respected institutions of higher education in the city.

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Yet somehow the people, culture and their art have managed to survive and I feel that it is their unique expression of filmmaking that most exemplifies the character and artistic strengths of Poland’s people.

disappearing from the face of the earth. I truly feel that their cinematography has been as strong as it is having evolved during some of their most challenging times of upheaval and uncertainty. And although I cannot really explain it, I truly feel a kinship and connection to these people through this art form. During my pursuit of this art I hope I can do justice to the culture of the Polish people and to further my own passion in this medium, and continue the legacy of filmmaking that Poland has so successfully championed over the last century.

Film is the only art form, to my way of thinking, that incorporates all mediums of art in a singular, unifying movement of sight and sound. Through cinematography, the Polish people can keep their art, communication, language, music and ultimately their story from

Roman Polanski Andrzej Wajda Krzysztof Kieslowski

Animated Wonders From the early years of cinema, innovative Polish animated films have received many recognitions and prestigious awards and continue to flourish with creativity and edginess.

after Poland was a free country, funding for movie making was gone and many film studios could not afford to produce major films.

After the collapse of the Iron Curtain in Poland in 1989, many state-owned film studios, including those specializing in animation, were forced to close. During the communist rule of Poland, filmmakers skillfully made excellent films, often making political statements in a subliminal way. Since all films were censored during this time, filmmakers would include a dummy scene in each movie that was bold and anti-regime with the sole purpose of making it stand out within the film’s context. They knew censors would remove the offensive scene and miss the controversial undertones that were the real messages in the plot, which were most often too subtle for the censor’s eye. Yet ironically, even

Thankfully by the end of the 20th century there was a revival of animation in Poland. One of the reasons for this renaissance was the ready access to computers and the creativity that flourished under the fingertips and brilliant minds of film creators. And animated wonders could be produced for far less upfront money than a traditional film.

Tomasz Baginski, who made the art-nouveau fantasy, Cathedral, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2002, is one of the pioneers of this trend. The American Institute of Polish Culture showed Cathedral along with Baginski’s second short film, Fallen Art, at two prestigious South Florida shows - Art Basel in 2004 and then again at the Miami International Film Festival in 2005. Baginski is a member of Platige Image, founded in 1997, a preeminent animation company in Warsaw. In their repertoire they have Damian Nenow’s Paths of Hate (nominated for an Academy Award in 2012) and the powerful City of Ruins (released in 2010), an incredible stereoscopic animation digitally reconstructing Warsaw after its almost complete destruction by Germans in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising. The film recreates in excruciating detail the aerial view of the largely empty ruins from a B-24 Liberator bomber looping over the city in spring 1945.

The American Institute of Polish Culture is working on bringing more of these phenomenal masterpieces to Miami.

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Good News 2012-2013

The Art Songs of Chopin

By Ben Schultz

Recipient

Essay

that Chopin was exposed to as a child. Chopin was able to capture the essence of a “Polish” sound in his art songs.

Chopin’s songs are regarded to be the first model of the Polish popular art song. Many composers have modeled their own song compositions after Chopin’s style and approach to vocal music including Karłowicz and Szymanowski. Many of his songs utilize folk dances, as well as augmented fourths in the melodies, which is stylistically a trademark of Polish folk music. For most of Chopin’s life there had not been any “native” song writing, which explains his struggles to capture Polish nationalism.

Chopin’s instructor, Elsner, encouraged him to compose songs in the vernacular. Europe had started to embark on a wave of popularity in writing in one’s native tongue. Elsner recognized Chopin’s ability to accent the penultimate syllables of Polish words in his melodies and avoid a strong downbeat. Chopin utilized a sense of folk music by using four-bar phrases, and subdividing the phrases into smaller two-bar phrases.

This was a practice of folk singers in the countryside Good News 2012-2013

S cholarship Irsay

f Chopin’s compositions, his songs are not the most noteworthy pieces. Few songs have survived and are published all under the same opus number. “Leave me with a piano” was a famous quote by Chopin, especially in reference to any suggestion of composing an opera or any other vocal music. He did not write most of his songs down in a manuscript, but the ones that did make it to paper were set aside and left unpublished until after his death.

Harriet

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Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849)

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Even though Chopin’s songs are the most notable of early Polish art song, his accompaniments are no representation of his skill as a pianist. Chopin’s choice of poets is noteworthy. Chopin used five of his compatriots for his texts. Stefan Witwicki is utilized in ten of Chopin’s songs. Witwicki and Chopin were very intimate friends, and Chopin “fully appreciated his fellow countryman’s genius.” Each song set to Witwicki’s texts was from his group of poems called Pastoral Songs. In Witwicki’s Charms, Chopin adds an extra stanza at the end of the song as his own signature to the piece. Nowhere in any printed version of the Pastoral Songs will one see this verse. Another well-known poet whom Chopin befriended in Paris was Adam Mickiewicz. Regardless of Mickiewicz’s fame as a poet, Chopin only collaborated with him on two songs. Some other poets include Kasinski and Pol, whose texts are very patriotic and straightforward. Chopin set Pol’s text of the Burial Hymn, which is still considered to be Poland’s dirge.

A number of his songs were composed prior to leaving the country. These songs are often referred to as his “happy” songs, which deal with less dramatic and serious texts. Wish is his earliest song, a lighthearted love song capturing a youthful tone with musical text painting a bird flying in the air. Another song which paints a picture is The Warrior, wherein the piano depicts horses’ galloping while the vocal line is declamatory as the warrior goes off to fight for his country. Chopin’s later songs are darker and more serious. Both Death’s Divisions and Poland’s dirge have a serious text which implies the longing for home and the pains of death and strife during war. An obvious change of tone in his approach to art song is evident musically and emotionally as he too deteriorated.

In conclusion, Chopin is considered to be one of the greatest Romantic forerunners of the 19th century, and the same can be said about his song compositions. His songs may not represent the strongest compositional techniques, especially when compared to the lieder from Germany or even the chansons of France. But as a Pole, Chopin paved the way for future composers to write songs in the vernacular. He utilized forms he knew, as well as incorporated folk styles in his songs.

His songs may be few, but they will forever be a staple of Polish art song.

A Candle Lighting the Way for Others

By Nicole Kuruszko

Recipient S cholarship Irsay

Irena quickly set out to rescue the children from the ghetto through ingenious means. For instance, some were helped to escape through the old courthouse at the edge of the Warsaw ghetto, through the sewer pipes or other secret underground passages. Many children were carried out hidden in potato sacks, trunks and toolboxes, while others were hidden under a stretcher and taken out by an ambulance (Wieler, 836). The children were then safely placed into Polish families, convents, or orphanages, providing false names and identities (Devine, 34). In the hopes of reuniting the children with their families after the war, Irena kept paper lists of each child’s Jewish name, Polish name, and address all in glass jars. She buried the jars under apple trees, even, daringly, under one tree across the German barracks (Irena Sendler Project). In 1943 she was arrested and placed in the notorious Pawiak prison. After relentless questioning and torture by the Gestapo, Irena was sentenced to death by a firing squad. However, unknown to her, Żegota had bribed the German executioner and helped her escape. Following the years after the war, Irena desperately tried to reunite the children she rescued with their families (Wieler, 836).

Irena Sendler

Harriet

As a daughter of a doctor, Irena Sendler was brought up to believe that it was morally right to help others, regardless of religion or nationality. Unsurprisingly, she dedicated herself to a life of social work, staying tantamount to this firm philosophy. Upon the German invasion of Poland in 1939, she continued to act from the need of her heart, particularly when the Warsaw Ghetto was created the following year. Enclosing 16 blocks of the city, the Warsaw Ghetto barricaded 450,000 Jewish people in abysmal conditions (Wieler, 836). Granted permission as a nurse to enter the ghetto, Irena instantly realized her new opportunity in bringing the children to safety. In fact, she and her co-workers secretly cooperated with an underground organization called Żegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews (Tomaszewski and Werbowski, xxv). Still, Żegota members and their families lived under the constant threat of execution for their secret actions.

Essay

A

n incredible teacher is like a candle -- it consumes itself, lighting the way for others who seek its warmth. Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker during World War II, exemplifies just that very teacher, leading us to appreciate the meaning of compassion in a time of unspeakable darkness.

Of course, Irena played a tremendous role during the war; so tremendous, that she selflessly helped rescue the lives of 2,500 Jewish children in Warsaw, Poland.

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Irena’s heroic actions were almost lost to history until four Kansas schoolgirls rediscovered her story for a history project in 1999. Alongside teacher Norman Conard, students Elizabeth Cambers, Megan Stewart, Sabrina Coons and Janice Underwood wrote a short play based on Irena’s rescue efforts called “Life in a Jar.” To their surprise, Irena was still alive and living in Warsaw.

Without hesitation, they wrote to her, telling her about the project and the enthusiastic response to the play.

Irena wrote in return saying that their work was continuing the effort she had started more than half a century before. In time, the history assignment became an international story and inspired the students to travel to Poland four times to visit Irena (Schwartz, H14). In 2003, she was awarded Poland’s Order of the White Eagle and nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Sadly, at the age of 98, she passed away in 2008.

It is difficult to imagine the terrifying dangers she faced daily as she risked her life for others. When asked about her efforts, Irena remained humble to the end, even stating, “Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, not a title to glory” (Devine 34). Not only do her heroic efforts represent a special part of Polish history, but they also symbolize a universal message of tolerance. Irena’s legacy lights the way for others to follow a path of righteousness and illustrates how one person can truly transform the world.

Bibliography: Devine, Miranda. 2011. “Holocaust’s Real Heroes.” Herald Sun Australia.

Irena Sendler Project. 2006. “The Discovery.” Life in a Jar Foundation: Irena

Sendler Project. http://www.irenasendler.org/thestory.asp Schwartz, Susan. 2007.”How One Person Can Change the World.”

The Gazette Montreal Tomaszewski, Irene, Tecia Werbowski.. 2010. Code Name Żegota: Rescuing Jews

in Occupied Poland, 1942-1945: The Most Dangerous Conspiracy in

Wartime Europe. Praeger.

Wieler, Joachim. 2008. “Brief note: Remembering Irena Sendler: A Mother Cour

age honoured as most distinguished social worker of IFSW.”

International Social Work. Vol.51 Issue 6

http://isw.sagepub.com/content/51/6/835

Good News 2012-2013

Philanthropist Remembered

O

ne of the richest women in the world and a generous philanthropist with a passion for art died on April 1, 2013 in her childhood hometown of Wroclaw, Poland. Barbara Piasecka Johnson, the widow of J. Seward Johnson Sr. of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical family, inherited $300 million, over half of her husband’s fortune, when he died in 1983. Basia, as she was called, used her vast wealth to amass a huge art collection of works done by masters such as Reubens, Rembrandt, Cezanne and Monet, donated considerable sums of money to charitable causes in the US and Poland, and founded a few philanthropic organizations. At her death, her financial worth was estimated at $3.6 billion.

Johnson received her degree in art history in Poland before emigrating to America, and she never stopped learning.

Coupled with her life-long love of art, she became a very savvy businesswoman who transacted several of the art world’s most lucrative sales. In 2004, she sold the world’s most expensive piece of furniture, an 18th century Badminton cabinet, to Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein for a record $36.7 million. In 2009, she sold Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo to casino mogul Steve Wynn for $32.9 million. Several pieces from her collection are currently on display at the Musee de la Chapelle de la Visitation in Monaco. Others can be viewed at the National Museum of Poland.

Basia’s philanthropic work was particularly apparent in Poland. Many of her initiatives focused on autism, such as Art for Autism. The Barbara Piasecka Johnson Foundation also supported the Polish branch of the Princeton Child Development Institute - the Institute for Child Development in Gdansk. The Foundation was involved from the Institute’s inception in order to provide “world-class science-based therapy to children with autism and assistance to their families,

scientific studies of autism therapy, and training for professionals specializing in autism.”

From humble beginnings on a small farm in Poland to a life lead in the rarified world of the extremely privileged, Barbara Piasecka Johnson was a woman who embraced what life gave her by giving back as much as she could give. She worked, and succeeded, at making the world a better and more beautiful place.

Our thoughts and prayers go to Basia’s immediate family, especially her brother.

We recognize the enormous positive impact she made in many lives over the years through the charitable causes that were close to her heart. With fewer and fewer people giving back to society, Basia will long be remembered for her generous spirit and philanthropic nature.

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Santo Subito in Miami

By Beata Paszyc

O

n January 27, 2013, St. Mary’s Cathedral in Miami was the perfect setting for the inaugural performance of Piotr Rubik’s U.S. tour of Santo Subito: Cantobiography of Pope John Paul II. This lavish musical production was organized by Krzysztof Zakreta, President of Christopher Entertainment Corp. from Chicago, IL, and beautifully portrayed why Rubik is considered one of Poland’s foremost composers, cellist and pianist. Accompanied by amazing soloists, chorus, and orchestra, it was truly a magical evening!

Santo Subito is not a historical biography, but rather an emotional journey that chronicles the life and work of Karol Wojtyła - or Pope John Paul II - from his childhood until the moment his ministry was fulfilled. The journey opens with the song “Lolek,” a charming story about Wojtyła’s early life in Wadowice, and continues with songs celebrating his love of theater, his priesthood, and papacy. The libretto, written

by Jacek Cygan, references many cultural facts and reveals intriguing information about the Pope’s life.

The concert was lively and emotional, and performed at the highest level of artistry. Rubik’s work can be defined as a mix of classical and pop music with sacral elements arranged for orchestra. All of the songs were sung in Polish (with the text translated in the program), and the performance was very well received. Many of the 200 people who attended did not speak Polish, and yet they were moved and impressed by the beauty of the melodies, soloists’ voices and the overall performance. There was exuberant applause and three encores at the end. Several guests stayed to meet and congratulate the composer on his remarkable piece.

well-known orchestras, such as the World Orchestra Jeunesses Musicales and Sinfonia Varsovia.

However, since childhood he also dreamed of being a composer and producer. At the beginning of his artistic career, he worked with many outstanding artists by composing for them, conducting orchestras or as an accompanying pianist.

He produced more than 30 albums for many famous Polish artists; his first big hit was Dotyk [Touch] performed by Edyta Górniak.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski, Father Marino, Sister Carmen, Barbara Cooper, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, and Beata Paszyc were instrumental in making this event possible, and attended the performance along with many of the members of the American Institute of Polish Culture. Santo Subito was truly an unforgettable event.

Piotr Rubik was born on September 3, 1968 in Warsaw, Poland. As a child he practiced to become a cellist, first at elementary music school, then during high school and finally at Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw. Once a fully skilled musician, he collaborated with many

Mr. Piotr Rubik with soloists, orchestra and choir

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Good News 2012-2013

Rubik scored the music for several movies such as Ja wam pokażę, Ryś, Quo Vadis and Zemsta, but he gained most of his popularity by composing oratorios like Tu es Petrus and September Psalter. One of the best-sellers from his oratorios - Let Them Say It Is Not Love - has been acclaimed the best Polish song of all time by Radio Zet, and Psalm For You has held the first place on Polish hit parades for many weeks. Mr. Rubik is the recipient of many prestigious awards.

Ms. Izabella Budys, Mrs. Beata Paszyc, Miss Nel Velez-Paszyc, Mr. Piotr Rubik, Ms. Barbara Cooper, Ms. Claudine Smurfit

Did you know…

World Youth Day (WYD) will be held in Krakow, Poland in 2016. The announcement was made by Pope Francis at WYD in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this year, thrilling Poles worldwide. When the Pope confirmed that he will attend the celebration in Krakow as well, the excitement among Catholics throughout the world, especially Poles and Polish-Americans, was palpable.

World Youth Day was initiated by Pope John Paul II in 1984. The most emphasized and well known theme of WYD is the unity of acceptance among people of all different cultures coming together to appreciate one another. Since 2002, it is celebrated every three years in its host city with numerous events, concerts, festivals and masses, with dioceses throughout the world also celebrating the occasion.

John Paul II, I was Looking for You…

In an article written for the Florida Catholic weekly newspaper on August 1, 2013, reporter Tom Tracy quoted Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, “Needless to say we are all excited. Pope Francis reminds us Poles of John Paul II. He has the same attitude of life, he is very humble, down to earth, great with people and considers everybody a person deserving of the all the best.”

The film John Paul II, I was Looking for You, is a documentary about the life and legacy of Pope John Paul II. It highlights the Pope’s unique place in the history of the church and the world with his incredible charismatic personality, openness and a sense of humor that have united people of various faiths on all continents.

Included are archival materials from the pilgrimages of Blessed John Paul II to thirteen countries, and exclusive interviews with spiritual leaders such as Cardinal Dziwisz, the Dalai Lama, and Rabi Yisrael Meir Lau were used in the production of this fascinating documentary.

Lady Blanka went on to say that the Pope can expect a robust, enthusiastic reception in Poland and in Krakow, a city known for fiercely preserving its cultural treasures and traditions.

Good News 2012-2013

The film, presented in four languages: Polish, English, Italian and Spanish, is available for sale at the American Institute of Polish Culture for a donation of $15 + shipping. Please call 305-864-2349, email: assistant@ampolinstitute.org or order on line: www.ampolinstitute.org

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Chesterton and the Challenge of Poland Excerpted from an article by Dr. Dermot Quinn*

T

he English writer Gilbert Keith “G.K.” Chesterton (1874-1936) made no secret of his love and deep admiration of Poland and its people. He believed Poland stood at the forefront of European nations because the strong spirit and unwavering convictions of the Poles over many decades of struggle and tyranny was never broken. They refused to succumb to their oppressors nor cede to unwanted ideologies, and Chesterton felt this was where Poland’s greatness as a country lies. Polish decency and dignity moved him profoundly, the Poles suffering wounded him to the core, and the country’s freedom and independence brought him joy.

Whether free or in chains, Poland was, for Chesterton, a metaphor for all Christian nations of the 20th century.

What Poland had endured, others might endure, and what Poland enjoyed, others might also enjoy.

thoughtful and insightful talks about the variety of issues confronting Poland today and the lively intelligence Polish Chestertonians bring to solving them. Among other lectures were ones made by philosophers, a psychologist, a doctoral student of Chesterton thought and studies, and other intellectuals from Poland who continue to promote G.K. Chesterton’s philosophical writings and ideas that have so enriched contemporary thinking.

As one of the great writers of his time, G.K. Chesterton devoted his life to an urgent call for cultural renewal. This renewal, he argued, must be felt in every sphere of human activity: in family life, in business, in art, in literature.

He believed passionately in freedom and responsibility – the great themes of Pope John Paul’s stunning pontificate.

Like John Paul, he was also a man of courage who inspired courage in others.

With the ongoing encouragement and support from Lady Blanka Rosenstiel and the American Institute of Polish Culture, the John Paul II Museum in Poland, and other organizations dedicated to making available education and culture to all people worldwide, the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture, US will be able to continue their mission of presenting scholarly and stimulating materials from a variety of sources, broaden the scope of Chesterton thought, and pave the way for more intellectual dialogue relevant to the 21st century.

In October 2012, the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture, US under the direction of Father Ian Boyd, C.S.B., and with generous sponsorship of the Hon. Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of the Archdiocese of Krakow and other organizations dedicated to encouraging continuous education and culture throughout the world, held conferences in Krakow and Warsaw on the theme “Chesterton and the Challenge of Poland.” The 2012 conference aimed to plant the intellectual seed of Chesterton in Poland, and the planned 2014 conference series will focus on his life, work, ideas and writings. The ultimate goal of these conference is to establish a continuing Polish retreat for public intellectuals and political figures on Chestertonian themes, along with the public in general, for future Chesterton seminars in Poland. The programs will also include a “Gathering of Chestertonian Friends” and an opportunity to exchange ideas in an open and social setting.

For more information on the Chesterton Institute and their calendar of events and conferences, please visit www.shu. edu/catholic-mission/chesterton Fr. Ian Boyd, C.S.B., Founder and President of the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture based at Seton Hall University and Editor of its highly acclaimed international journal The Chesterton Review, is an internationally recognized Chesterton scholar and the author of The Novels of G.K. Chesterton (Barnes & Noble Books, 1975). Father Boyd is currently a member of the Department of English at Seton Hall University, and lectures extensively on the subject of “Sacramental Themes in Modern Literature.”

Among the Christian authors whose work he discusses are T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene, C.S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, Piers Paul Read, Muriel Spark and Evelyn Waugh.

During the 2012 conference, presentations were made by members of the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture from the Center of Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, US - Father Ian Boyd and Professor Dermot Quinn. Both scholars and lecturers, each gave 77

Good News 2012-2013

Dr. Dermot Quinn, Ph.D., Professor of History at Seton Hall University, sits on the Board of Advisors of the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture and on the Editorial Board of The Chesterton Review. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin and receiving his doctorate from New College, Oxford, England in 1986, he is the author of three books: The Irish in New Jersey: Four Centuries of American Life (Rutgers University Press, 2004), Patronage and Piety: The Politics of English Roman Catholicism, 1850-1900 (Stanford University Press/Macmillan, 1193) and Understanding Northern Ireland (Baseline Books, UK, 1993). Dr. Quinn has written many articles and reviews in the field of Irish and British history, and was a Fellow of the James Madison Program at Princeton University, 2008-2009. *from The Chesterton Review (Fall/Winter 2012)

Good News 2012-2013

78

KON & ASSOCIATES, L.L.C.

KON & A

Malgorzata J. Kon

Malgorza

Attorney at Law

Attorney at La

2131 Hollywood Boulevard Suite 201 Hollywood, Florida 33020

2131 Hollyw Suite 201 Hollywood

Tel: 954-925-4102 Fax: 954-925-4104 E-mail: mkonlaw@aol.com

Tel: 954-925Fax: 954-925 E-mail: mkon

KON & ASSOCIATES, L.L.C.

KON & A

Malgorzata J. Kon

Malgorza

Attorney at Law

Attorney at La

2131 Hollywood Boulevard Suite 201 Hollywood, Florida 33020

2131 Hollyw Suite 201 Hollywood

Tel: 954-925-4102 Fax: 954-925-4104 E-mail: mkonlaw@aol.com

Tel: 954-925Fax: 954-925 E-mail: mkon

KON & ASSOCIATES, L.L.C.

KON & A

Malgorzata J. Kon

Malgorza

Attorney at Law

Attorney at La

2131 Hollywood Boulevard Suite 201 Hollywood, Florida 33020

2131 Hollyw Suite 201 Hollywood

Tel: 954-925-4102 Fax: 954-925-4104 E-mail: mkonlaw@aol.com

Tel: 954-925Fax: 954-925 E-mail: mkon

KON & ASSOCIATES, L.L.C.

KON & A

Malgorzata J. Kon

Malgorza

Attorney at Law

Attorney at La

2131 Hollywood Boulevard Suite 201 Hollywood, Florida 33020

2131 Hollyw Suite 201 Hollywood

Tel: 954-925-4102 Fax: 954-925-4104 E-mail: mkonlaw@aol.com

Tel: 954-925Fax: 954-925 E-mail: mkon

CHOPIN Foundation of the United States, Inc. 1440 79th Street Cswy, Suite 117, Miami, FL 33141 www.chopin.org • 305/868-0624 • info@chopin.org

It is my pleasure to invite everyone to our exciting 2013-14 concert season that will include no less than twenty concerts!

Once again we are pleased to offer an appealing and diversified array of events featuring young, exciting, world-class classical musicians whose performances will thrill even the most sophisticated music lover. Along with the Chopin for All FREE Concert Series, a unique monthly series that is presented annually in two South Florida venues, we invite you to three Salon Series concerts accompanied by wine receptions and dinners at the elegant La Gorce Country Club. On March 1, 2014, we are celebrating Chopin’s Birthday at the beautiful Manuel Artime Theater, the new home for our 2015 National Chopin Piano Competition. Two more concerts, both in Key Biscayne, will be presented in collaboration with partner organizations.

foundations and corporations.

We are fortunate to be the recipients of a deeply appreciated sponsorship from Southern Wine & Spirits of America for Jadwiga “Viga” Gewert the Chopin for All FREE ConExecutive Director cert Series and are immensely grateful to Yamaha Artist Services and Piano Music Center for their continued support of our events. Our many generous individual patrons and members have a profound affect on our success.

At the same time our regional branches in San Francisco (www. chopinSF.org) and Seattle (www.chopinNW.org) carry out our mission with music festivals and Young Pianists Competitions.

For details, please visit their websites.

The Chopin Foundation’s mission to help talented young musicians with scholarships and performance opportunities could not be realized without support from the Rosenstiel Foundation, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the City of Coral Gables, and other valued

When in Florida, San Francisco or Seattle, please join us at our many live concert performances featuring world-class artists performing the music of Frédéric Chopin. Please visit us at www.chopin.org to find out more.

CHOPIN’S BIRTHDAY Celebration Concert MARCH 1, 2014 Sergei Babayan, piano and special guests!

Manuel Artime Theater 900 SW First Street, Miami, FL The Chopin Foundation is pleased to announce two special collaborative concerts: MARCH 8, 2014 - ARTIST TBA

FEBRUARY 23, 2014 - ADAM ALEKSANDER Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Key Biscayne Tickets: $35, Chopin Members: $30 For tickets call RSMAS at (305) 421-4061

A community performance with the City of Key Biscayne Call the Chopin Foundation: (305) 868-0624 or visit www.chopin.org for more details

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Good News 2012-2013

2013 -14

CHOPIN Concert Season www.chopin.org (305)868-0624

Chopin Salon Series Intimate concerts followed by wine reception and post-concert dinner.

La Gorce Country Club • 5685 Alton Road • Miami Beach

November 17, 2013, 4 pm

January 12, 2014, 4 pm

Akejsabdra Kuls, violin Marcin Koziak, piano

Claire Huangci, Winner of the 2010 National Chopin Competition of the USA

March 30, 2014, 4 pm Sean Chen, 2013 Winner of APA’s Classical Fellowship & Bronze Medalist 2013 Cliburn Int’l Piano Competition

Salon Concerts and Receptions are FREE for Members. Sumptuous dinners only $55.

Non-Members also welcome! Please call for membership & ticket info. (305) 898-0624

Southern Wine & Spirits of America’s 2013-14 Chopin for All FREE Concert Series Each concert in this series is presented in two locations: Saturdays at 3 pm at Broward County Main Library, 100 S. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale Sundays at 3 pm at Granada Presbyterian Church, 950 University Drive, Coral Gables

February 8, 2014 February 9, 2014 Lindsay Garritson

November 2, 2013 November 3, 2013 Corbin Beisner

Award winning young American pianist, violinist and vocalist

Young outstanding American artist

March 15, 2014 March 16, 2014

December 7, 2013 December 8, 2013 Drew Petersen Four-year Chopin Scholarship recipient & his brother, Erik Petersen, baritone Program: Chopin and Schubert

Corbin Beisner

January 18, 2014 January 19, 2014

Drew Petersen

Lindsay Garritson

Conlan Miller

2013 Int’l Paderewski Piano Competition winner

April 12, 2014 April 13, 2014 Young Pianists Concerts Young local piano students in an All-Chopin program

2013 winner of the MTNA’s Piano Performance Competition

May 17, 2014 May 18, 2014 Micah McLaurin Conlan Miller

Micah McLaurin

Young emerging American pianist Program: Chopin and Schumann

Chopin for All ADMISSION FREE! No Tickets Required.

Seating on a first-come-first-served basis. Plan to arrive early! Please call for more information. (305) 868-0624

Good News 2012-2013

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Joyful Festivity

L

aughter and festivity were abundant on December 27, 2012 when AIPC and the Chopin Foundation celebrated the holidays with an open house.

Members and friends circulated with plates of delectable Polish goodies, while children played and sang and had as many wonderful sweets as they could eat! Archibishop Wenski stopped by as well as some members of Miamiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s diplomatic corps.

Lady Blanka thanked everyone for another successful year and wished all a healthy and joyful New Year. Augustin Anievas, whose performance has become an annual tradition at the holiday parties, captivated the group with Chopinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ballade No. 1 on the piano.

Mr. Leszek Ladowski, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel

Dr. Vikram Desai, Ms. Lynne Schaefer, Mr. Steve Karski

Mrs. Doddamani, Ambassador Jagannath Doddamani

It was a peaceful way to end the year - an afternoon of music and joy!

Dr. Irena Siemiginowski, Mr. Jerzy Siemiginowski

Ms. Melissa Szwanke, Mr. Duane Treeman, Ms. Karen Lesnicki, Mrs. Liliana Treeman

Mrs. Elzbieta Piotrovsky, Mr. Ralph Piotrovsky

Dean William Hipp, Mrs. Frankie Hipp, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel

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Good News 2012-2013

Miss Nel Velez-Paszyc

Mrs. Krystyna Selzer, Ms. Iga Henderson

Mr. Frank Tomasino, Mr. Bernard Kmita, Yanes Tomasino, Miss Francesca Tomasino, Julien Tomasino, Mrs. Magdalena Tomasino

Mrs. Monika Bajcar, Oliwier Bajcar, Mrs. Maria Ladowski, Mr. Bronislaw Bajcar, Mr. Kazimierz Korzeb, Mrs. Eva Korzeb

Vibrant Virtuoso One of Poland’s...really the world’s...most gifted and celebrated acoustical guitarists graced St. Augustine Catholic Church in Coral Gables, Florida on April 19, 2013. Marcin Dylla is considered by many to be among the top ranking young virtuosos on the international classical scene. His dynamic and passionate playing, and his elegant interpretations of a huge array of pieces from many genres keep his fans wanting more. His live performances are a force unto themselves.

For information about the Florida Guitar Foundation’s upcoming events and performances, please visit their website at www.floridaguitarfoundation.org

The American Institute of Polish Culture is extremely grateful to the Florida Guitar Foundation, Executive Director, Federico Musgrove and Director, Richard Schriber for bringing this extraordinary performer to Miami and for promoting this event among members of the Polish-American community in South Florida. Considering Marcin Dylla had just made his debut at Carnegie Hall the week before, the recital was an extra special treat for all who attended, including some very lucky AIPC members. Bravo!

Good News 2012-2013

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Easter Spring Celebration

O

n Wednesday, April 3, 2013, AIPC opened its doors to members, friends of the Institute and performers from the Chopin Foundation for the annual Spring holiday party. Platters of tasty Polish-style sandwiches made by Mrs. Maria Blancha, sausages and cheese boards from a South Florida Polish deli and assorted baked and wrapped sweets were enjoyed by over 70 guests.

As a treat, the Chopin Foundation arranged for 12-year old Shayaan Subzwai and his 13-year old sister, Sumera, to perform a variety of piano pieces by Frederic Chopin.

Celebrating with us was Daisy de Grabowski Richardson, who brought along copies of her brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book, Casting Off, A Solo Atlantic Voyage, which she signed for guests. Count Christopher de Grabowski had a deep passion for the sea and fulfilled his dreams by sailing solo from Gibraltar to New York City in 1959. During the 84-day voyage, he kept a detailed journal which Ms. Richardson published as this book. In 1964, while pursuing his dreams of mastering the seas, Chris disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle.

Dr. Irena Siemiginowski, Mrs. Daisy Richardson

Ms. Melissa Szwanke, Mrs. Alicja Iwaszkiewicz, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Mrs. Barbara Cooper, Mrs. Elzbieta Paszyc

Mrs. Renata Moulavi, Mrs. Valeria Rosenbloom

Miss Sumera Subzwai

Mrs. Barbara Cooper, Mrs. Inga Luksza Senis, Mrs. Magdalena Mangra

Mr. Shayaan Subzwai

Lady Blanka Rosenstiel, Dean William Hipp

Mrs. Miriann Meyeringh, Ms. Iga Henderson, Mr. Mike Skronski, Ms. Jadwiga Garbacik

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Dr. Pat Riley, Prof. Stefan Paszyc

Good News 2012-2013

PRINT MANAGEMENT • GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN SIGNS & BANNERS • PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS WAREHOUSE SERVICES STATIONAMERICA.COM

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Casting Off - A Solo Atlantic Voyage

By Count Christopher de Grabowski Published by Daisy de Grabowski Richardson 2012 Reviewed by Lynne Schaefer

A

dventure books have always been a huge success in fiction, and the true stories of those who have seemingly risked everything to live a life on-the-edge have always fascinated and thrilled readers from all walks of life. Exciting stories of swashbucklers, feats of brute strength, daredevils, super powers, the “every day man” of tremendous courage and bravery -- all of these and more continue to capture the human heart and imagination.

Part sailing manual, part reflection of personal choices, and part travel guide, Casting Off is the real life story of a man who followed his lifelong dream to conquer the seas and master his own inner self. Count Christopher de Grabowski grew up in Poland with privilege, a fine education, contacts in high places, and all the rest that comes with an aristocratic pedigree. But he also had a tremendous sense of duty and honor, and valiantly flew with the Polish wing of the RAF during WWII, which perhaps whetted his appetite even more for personal challenges and a desire to follow his dreams. One of those dreams was sailing alone across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to America with only the power of the wind as his fuel. In 1959, Chris was finally able to realize that dream.

During the 84-day voyage, Chris kept a diary of what he had to do to keep his beloved small deep water vessel, Tethys, seaworthy, protected in the harsh weather and raging waves, and headed in the right direction even in contrary winds. And what he had to do to keep himself mentally stable, physically fit and healthy and emotionally secure. He was able to rest and stock up in small Mediterranean ports before he headed out to sea with no further contact to land, and his deep respect for these tiny coastal villages and the hardy residents is apparent throughout his diary.

In the end, Casting Off is about a man who challenged himself throughout his life, who stayed focused on his goals and did the best he could do to achieve them, and yet maintained a sense of wonder for all that the world can give us and gratitude to all that he learned. Chris continued working on the seas until his disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle on January 13, 1964 while skippering the yacht Enchantress. Although a terrible loss to those he left behind, it is a fitting end for a man whose passion for the sea never wavered. In mentioning the great sailor, Joshua Slocum, Chris wrote, “I take my hat off to his tremendous feat of seamanship which possibly will never be equaled. I also wish I could meet my end the way he did: disappearing at sea.”

But most of Chris’ writing is about his own internal dialogue, of what drives one to want to take on a possible life threatening, certainly life changing, challenge such as his; of how to reconcile the unrelenting need for this kind of physical and personal journey with the demands of “normal” life -family and business; of how to grapple with overwhelming loneliness and morale-draining solitude when a sharp mind and full attention are required; of how to integrate an extreme experience into one’s life afterwards and find fulfillment. Chris doesn’t pretend to know it all, but his constant search for answers and putting his musings on paper are acts of bravery as well.

Daisy de Grabowski Richardson has presented Casting Off as a loving tribute to her brother, Chris, and an uplifting gift to all, especially those who may need that extra push to start realizing a dream.

For more information about Casting Off - A Solo Atlantic Voyage and how to purchase it, please go to www.castingoffsolo.com 85

Good News 2012-2013

KLUB FILARY Warsaw, Poland

KLUB FILARY

KLUB FILARY

A Project for the Future Achieved Today ¥ Klub Filary’s mission is to help girls and teenagers become productive and self governing citizens by developing a healthy self-esteem and promoting conÞdence towards themselves and others. ¥ Through a multiple activity-based program Klub Filary empowers the Education Triangle conformed by Parents, School and Free Time. Klub Filary enhances the Education Triangle by complementing the parent’s role in the bringing up of their children. ¥ In order to develop an holistic personality, Klub Filary stimulates teenagers to discover new horizons and enrich their lives through the achievement of skills and values for becoming young leaders of the future.

ACTIVITIES

To sponsor an annual activityprogram for a hundred attendees during 2014, Klub Filary needs a contribution of sixty thousand dollars per year.

Aimed for School & University Students

Current activities involve lectures on leadership, problem solving, developing social skills, fashion; literature, craft and photography workshops; language courses; drama, dance and music lessons. Voluntary work and summer camps, festivals and concerts are also included in the annual activity-program.

Contributions can be made through:

Bank coordinates:

Rosemoor Foundation, Inc. 243 Lexington Avenue New York, 10016-4605 NY www.rosemoor.org

UBS AG ABA# 026007993 SWIFT - BIC # (for international transfers) UBS Financial Services, Inc. Retail Incoming

Attention: Jacqueline Taylor

(jtaylor@rosemoor.org)

tel: +1 646-742-2846

fax: +1 646-742-2851

A/C # 101-WA-258640-000 F/C UBS-FINSVC Rosemoor Foundation A/C-UBS-FINSVC KU 21349 BSA

Contributions made through Rosemoor Foundation are tax deductible to the extent permitted by US Law.

For further information, please contact us spkk@conÞdo.pl or visit our website www.gosciniec12.pl, www.spkk.org.pl

Good News 2012-2013

86

Students Corner W

e believe in encouraging young people to become involved in their community, to welcome and learn more about their heritage and its contributions to America, and to use the knowledge and resources that educational institutions offer to go forward and make a positive impact on the future. To that end, we offer a free annual membership to the Institute for students who would like to be part of our ongoing projects.

As new members, students will receive a copy of the Good News magazine as well as be informed of upcoming projects organized, sponsored or recommended by AIPC. For those living in the Miami area, we welcome visits to our library that has a selection of books in English and Polish.

We also offer opportunities for volunteering -- proofreading, helping with social media, creating graphic art, manning welcome desks at events, computer IT work and more.

New Student Members

Emily Dixon Christine Lynn Erne Maria Gabryszewska Ian Gillespie Elisha Kemp Melissa Matsanka Patrick Oscar Misiewicz

Sebastian Misiewicz Erick Raj Michael Szpindor Watson Marysia Szpindor Watson Jason Tomczak Bianka Ukleja Jake Ukleja

All student Scholarship recipients automatically become members too!

For student memberships, please complete and submit the form provided at the end of this publication.

Student Voices “Thank you so much for your letter of recommendation to study abroad at the John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin, Poland. You have made my dreams come true.

Best summer experience of a lifetime!”

Nichole Kuruszko 2012-13 Harriet Irsay Scholarship Winner

Student Spotlight Bianka Ukleja and Jake Ukleja, sister and brother, are first generation Polish-American high school students in South Florida. Both are trilingual, speaking fluent English, Polish and Spanish; both play musical instruments and are very active in various honor societies.

Jake, 16, is a nationally ranked math competitor and is a member of Mu Alpha Theta, the Math National Honor Society. He is also involved with the National Honor Society, Science National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society. He has a passion for playing tennis, his oboe and the piano -- not necessarily in that order!

Bianka, 17 and heading to college in 2014, is a member of the National Honor Society, English Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society. She plans to double major in Slavic and International Studies when she’s not practicing her French horn and playing the piano, and perhaps editing the university’s literary publications as she does now for Cypress Bay High School in Weston.

Their parents, Anna and Andrew Ukleja, made sure that their two children learned Polish history and traditions, and embraced their heritage. Dr. and Mrs. Ukleja are long-time members of AIPC who enjoy volunteering, participating in many of our events, and attending the International Polonaise Balls with Bianka and Jake.

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Good News 2012-2013

Volunteers V

olunteers are the backbone of many non-profit organizations and events, and their dedication, skills and generous donation of their time are beyond measure and essential to the success of AIPC. We hope you will consider becoming a volunteer for us. Typical duties include proofreading our publications, preparations for the Annual International Polonaise Ball, promoting Institute activities and events, recruiting new members and students for the scholarship program, and archiving documents and other materials. Volunteers are welcome to use the Institute’s library and other educational resources.

“

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself i n t h e s e r v i c e o f o t h e r s.

.

Mahatma Ghandi

Good News 2012-2013

“

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Michael Antczak Maria Blacha Ewa Czulinska Douglas Evans Jadwiga Gewert Miriam Guazzini Bernard Kmita Janusz Kozlowski Inga Lukas Senis Teresa Lowenthal

Miriann Meyeringh Barbara Muze Ela Piotrovsky Amanda Rottermund Jaroslaw Rottermund Mike Skronski John Sullivan Melissa Szwanke Anna Ukleja Joanna Wiela

Please call if you would like to donate some of your free time. We would love to see you!

Contact: (305) 864-2349 or director@ampolinstitute.org

Thanks to our Donors... ...for opening your hearts and never thinking twice about giving. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue with our current programs and to develop new ones that enrich lives, such as the International Polonaise Ball, 40th Anniversary Chronicle, Blanka Rosenstiel Lecture Series on Poland at FIU, publication and special project funds, as well as the Harriet Irsay Scholarship Fund. We are truly grateful.

Thank you

Donors in 2012-2013 Mr. Michael Alexander Mrs. Virginia Aristizabal Cordoba Mr. Juan Carlos Avila Mrs. Ruby Bacardi Mr. & Mrs. Bronislaw Bajcar Mr. & Mrs. Ellsworth Benson III Mr. & Mrs. Roman Buch Countess Barbara Cooper Monsignor Anthony Czarnecki Mr. David Dombrowski Mrs. Renata Ryan & Mr. Charles Falk Mr. & Mrs. Keith Gray Mr. & Mrs. Amadeo Guazzini Joanna Helenowska-Gittler Ms. Iga Henderson Count Rodney Hildebrant Mr. Steven Karski Dr. Brian Kiedrowski Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Kilmartin

“But I think

Mr. & Mrs. Edward Kruszewski Mr. Edward Kwiatkowski Mr. & Mrs. Frank Lennox Mr. & Mrs. Chester Lobrow Dr. Wlodzimierz Lopaczynski Mr. & Mrs. Paul Lowenthal Dr. & Mrs. Basil Mangra Count Matthew Meehan Marquise Maria Alonso & Marquis Alexander Montague Mr. Rafal Olbinski Dr. & Mrs. Marek Pienkowski Mrs. Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk Count Jason Psaltides Drs. Marian & Maria Pospieszalski Dr. Patricia Riley Ms. Alicja Schoonover Mr. Christopher Skibicki Drs. Januariusz & Janina Styperek

Mr. & Mrs. Mark Szpak Mr. & Mrs. Eugene Trela Dr. & Mrs. Mark Tucci Mr. & Mrs. Donal Washkewicz Dr. & Mrs. Henry Williams III Mr. & Mrs. Ludwik Wnekowicz Mr. & Mrs. John Zawisny

Other Donors

Bhoom Shanti Clientele COFE Properties Florida International University Gray and Sons Jewelry ReMax Executive Realty Southern Audio Visual Southern Wine & Spirits StationAmerica The Institute of World Politics

happiness springs from another

source, a far deeper one that doesn’t depend on will because it comes from

love.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis

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Good News 2012-2013

New Members W

e welcome our new members, appreciate their support and sincerely hope that they enjoy the events and publications of the American Institute of Polish Culture in Miami.

We are always ready to embrace new ideas and projects, and continue to sponsor, organize and produce new events.

But we do need all of our members’ help.

August 2012 - September 2013

And to all members....

We are especially honored to have many long-time members who, throughout the years, have helped us grow the Institute into a respected resource for Polish history and culture in the U.S. and abroad. Your dedication to our mission, participation in events, and ongoing interest in our publications is greatly appreciated and we thank you all for being part of our past and part of our future.

...thank you!

We ask that you encourage family members, friends and colleagues to join AIPC and play an important role in developing education, science and the arts throughout America.

Many of our events are free and, of course, offer wonderful opportunities to become personally involved in areas of interest. Our fund-raising efforts are noted for their elegance, grand traditions and salute to our Polish heritage. If each member brought 5 new members into the Institute, there’s no doubt we could expand our scope of works throughout America even more!

Member Notes In April, 2013, AIPC member, Krzysztof “Chris” Koltun, was the Polish honoree at the pluri-ethnic New Jersey Heritage Festival Ball in Newark, NJ. He took the opportunity to talk about his beautiful homeland (he was born in Warsaw) and his beloved adopted land, and how both countries share the strong values that make it possible to achieve one’s dream through work discipline and commitment to family and country. He also gave audience members copies of AIPC’s book, Conrad and His Contemporaries. He contacted us earlier in the year with the suggestion and we thought it was a great idea.

So with his donation we sent him a several boxes of our book, along with the pictorial exhibit, Perspektywa Polska: One Thousand Years of Polish Culture.

Andrew Lloyd von Gelt Sandra Ivy Laura G. Kafka-Price, Ph.D. Katarzyna Kardas Jan Knitter Krzysztof “Chris” Koltun William Kuczmanski Dale Lytkowski Krystyna Markut Aleksandra Marzec Sabrina Noto Francis S. Oleskiewicz Thaddeus Radzilowski, Ph.D. Barbara Stephens Charles Stephens Andrew & Anna Ukleja Jane Urbanski Robbins Cynthia Zell Good News 2012-2013

Congratulations, Mr. Koltun, and thank you for suggesting such an excellent opportunity to promote Polish culture.

We encourage other members and friends of the Institute to follow Chris Koltun’s example by purchasing AIPC-published books to distribute to school and libraries, to offer at gatherings, or give as presents. For more information, please contact us at assistant@ampolinstitute.org or by calling 305-864-2349.

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Delve into a Book members. from Conrad And His Contemporaries; general history; American Culture The Accomplished Senator, which might have famous

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." ~Saint Augustine

, in which you can read about the history of Poland

Please look over the list on this page and order today to take advantage of our current

ALL OF OUR BOOKS CAN BE ORDERED AND PURCHASED ONLINE: www.ampolinstitute.org I am interested in learning more of Poland’s history and culture. Please send the following book(s) to me at the address below (prices do not include postage): ___ The Piast Poland, by Paweł Jasienica (out of print) ___ Jagiellonian Poland, by Paweł Jasienica The Commonwealth of Both Nations, by Paweł Jasienica: ___ I. The Silver Age ___ II. Calamity of the Realm ___ III. The Tale of An Agony ___ The Polish Presence in America, by Julian Żebrowski ___ The Accomplished Senator, by Wawrzyniec Goślicki ___ True Heroes of Jamestown, by Arthur Leonard Waldo (10 in stock) ___ Madame Curie-Daughter of Poland, by Robert Woźnicki (10 in stock) ___ Conrad and His Contemporaries ___ , by Jan Dobraczyński ___ , by E.S. Urbański Boxed set of 5 Volumes, by Pawel Jasienica (6 in stock) ___

$25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $35.00 $35.00 $20.00 $20.00 $14.00 $12.00 $22.00 $125.00

Sub-Total _______ Discount (______) Florida residents add 7% sales tax _______ CHECK FOR TOTAL PAYMENT ENCLOSED $ _______

NAME _______________________________________________________________ ADDRESS ____________________________________________________________ CITY_______________________________STATE________________ZIP___________ More info: (305) 864-2349 fax: (305) 865-5150 or mail your order to the AIPC 1440 79th Street Causeway, Suite 117, Miami, FL 33141

Good News 2012-2013

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Good News 2012-2013

The American Institute of Polish Culture Membership and Contributions Title (Please check one): Mr.

Mrs. Miss Ms. Dr. Other:

First Name

Last Name

Address City State_______________ Zip ______________ Home Phone ______________ Work Phone ____________ Cell Phone ______________ Fax ______________________ Email

Membership

Tax Exempt Donations Donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law

(in the following categories)

Annual Membership Fees (non-tax deductible)

Please check one:

 Sponsor  Supporter  Patron  Benefactor  Angel  Other Amount

Please check one:

 Student

free

 Individual

$50

 Family

$75

$250 $500 $1,000 $2,500 $5,000 $ ______

Please designate the amount and the programs which you would like your donation to fund:

Membership includes a free copy of the Good News publication, a discount on books published by AIPC, member-only open-houses and announcements for all cultural events organized by the Institute.

 40th Anniversary Chronicle  Blanka Rosenstiel Lecture

Series on Poland at FIU  Publication Fund  Visiting Professors Fund  Special Projects Fund  Harriet Irsay Scholarship Fund at AIPC

$ _________ $ _________ $ _________ $ _________ $ _________ $ _________

Many of our supporters have remembered AIPC in their will while also providing for their family. A bequest will provide the continuing

Signature ________________________________________ Date____________________________ Please make checks payable to: The American Institute of Polish Culture, Inc. 1440 79th Street Causeway, Suite 117, Miami, FL 33141, Tel: 305.864.2349, info@ampolinstitute.org www. ampolinstitute.org

DUES, DONATIONS and ALL OTHER PAYMENTS CAN NOW BE MADE ON OUR WEBSITE Good News 2012-2013

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Good News 2012-2013

Congratulations on the 41 st Anniversary of the

American Institute of Polish Culture and

Best wishes for continued success from

Barbara S. Cooper

We handle all your home health care needs.

Cardio-Care, Inc. ● Nurses and nurses aides ● Physical and other therapists Tel. 773-989-8117 ● Fax. 773-989-8094

Cardio-Respiratory Assistance, Inc. Supplying medical equipment for home use: ● Oxygen ● Hospital beds and mattresses ● Wheelchairs, walkers and more Tel. 773-784-3877● Fax. 773-784-9852

5915-17 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60659 Serving the Chicagoland area exclusively for over 30 years.

The American Institute of Polish Culture 1440 79th Street Causeway, Suite 117 Miami, Florida 33141 USA $15.00

New generations cultivating Polish culture