History

On March 2, 1933, shortly after Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration, New York saw the premiere of "King Kong." Few would have guessed that the man who pilots the plane attacking the beast in the film's finale would return to uniform and play a role in two of the most challenging theaters of World War II: China and the Southwest Pacific.

On October 28, 1845, Zygmunt Wróblewski was born, one of the most outstanding Polish physicists, a pioneer of cryogenics, who, together with Karol Olszewski, was the first in history to liquefy the gases constituting the Earth's atmosphere.

Lisbon – a city of spies, emigrants, and secret couriers. It is here that Jan Kowalewski, a former codebreaker from the 1920s, creates "Continental Action" – a Polish intelligence project intended to dismantle Hitler's alliance from within. He meets Germans, talks with Italians, warns the world about Operation Barbarossa, and fights for a Europe that is beyond saving.

Although Christianity has been alive in Poland since the end of the 10th century, old pagan traditions related to the commemoration of the dead continued to intertwine with the faith in the Risen Christ for a long time.

Poles comprised only five percent of the RAF's forces in the Battle of Britain, but they were responsible for over ten percent of all German aircraft shot down. Their courage and effectiveness helped save Britain and changed the course of World War II.

In the autumn of 1939, Pomerania became the site of one of the most forgotten crimes of World War II, as neighbors turned weapons against neighbors and forests were turned into mass graves. "The Pomeranian Massacre"—that's how we now call this tragedy, which for decades remained in the shadow of Katyn. It's a story of human betrayal, planned genocide, and a memory that still cries out for justice.

In the collective imagination, "King Kong" is "Beauty and the Beast," the Empire State Building, and machine guns on the wings of a biplane. Few remember that the actor playing the pilot in the 1933 finale was actually an aviator who had nearly died in two wars.

On October 30, 1944, the American transport ship USS General George M. Randall sailed into New Zealand's Wellington Bay. On board were 733 Polish children, along with 105 caregivers, who had managed to escape from Siberia.

In the summer of 1920, Merian C. Cooper—the future creator of "King Kong," then a pilot in the Kościuszko Squadron—joined the Polish War of Independence. The American pilot from the Old West fought for Poland, saving entire units and earning the Virtuti Militari—and a place in our history.

In the shadow of the Battle of Warsaw, a silent hero was born – a chemist from Łódź who, instead of a gun, held a comb and a pencil. Thanks to him, Poland in 1920 knew more about the Red Army's movements than Tukhachevsky himself.

The 1st Armored Division is one of the most distinguished and elite Polish military units fighting in World War II. Its commander, General Stanisław Maczek, ordered his soldiers to "fight hard and like knights."