History


Poland on Hollywood Screens 1939-1945
Lidia Waluk-Legun, 1/17/2022

In the 1930s, the Warner Brothers film studio produced films in the spirit of social realism, covering less appealing themes in modern America, such as crime, poverty, and a clumsy legal system. In these films, Poles were presented as criminals and negative characters. In one of those films, The Life of Jimmy Dolan, the evil character was called Pulaski. In another film, How Many More Knights, a gangster and murderer was a man named Kościuszko.

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When Poland regained its independence after 123 years of partitions, it developed in every respect, especially in the cultural area. This fact was noticed in Warsaw, which from moment to moment was becoming a real European capital. During the celebration of the New Year, balls were held here, which attracted guests from all over the country, which raised the rank of our capital.

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January 14, 2022 is one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the outstanding patriot priest, Fr. dr Bolesław Domański. It will soon (on March 6) coincide with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Union of Poles in Germany. Few people know who Father Patron (as he was called) was and how important a role he played in the economic life and in maintaining Polish identity among Poles in Germany. His work and attitude can also serve as an example for contemporary Poles. This article is dedicated to be a reminder of this extraordinary figure.

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In the Shadow of Tehran
Waldemar Biniecki, 1/10/2022

On November 28 – December 1, 1943 in Tehran a meeting of the leaders of the anti-Nazi coalition (the so-called Big Three): US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, was held. Key decisions were made there to end World War II, and Central and Eastern Europe was sold there for a promise to support America in the war with Japan.

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The Polish-language media in Germany are already, as Germans call them — indicating their age of 131 years — "old". They were organized by political, military and economic emigrants, as well as the people who had chosen to settle outside Poland. They (the media) were an element and expression of identity and culture-creating activities of various Polish communities and emigrants. Their content were and are the phenomena that existed on the border of two cultures: Polish and German.

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Kuryer Polski would like to introduce you to a certain Pole, Marek Probosz, living in California, who — with great success — alone and without anyone's help, introduces America to "one of the greatest heroes of the 20th century", as The New York Times wrote, to Captain Witold Pilecki.

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Krakow's Nativity Scenes — and more
Ewa Michałowska-Walkiewicz, 12/18/2021

The nativity scene (pol. szopka), as the father prelate Michał Słowikowski from Lublin used to say, "...is a kind of sacred scene that primarily represents the Holy Family and everything that happened in Bethlehem..."

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Tadeusz (Ted) Cisek
A Farewell to a Hero
Katarzyna Murawska, 12/16/2021

One of the heroes is definitely Tadeusz Cisek - Siberia-veteran, paratrooper of General Stanisław Sosabowski's Independent Brigade, soldier of the Polish Armed Forces in the West, commander of the 94th SWAP outpost in Milwaukee, member of the Polish American Congress, Polish community activist. He passed away on December 8, 2021, at the age of 98. His fate is an individual record of Polish history after regaining independence in 1918.

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Martial Law 1981
The Jaruzelski-against-Poland War
Andrzej (Andrew) Woźniewicz, 12/8/2021

In a few days, we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the so-called Martial Law — the unconstitutional and (even according to the law of the time) illegal military coup, which was supposed to put an end to the operation of "Solidarity" — a political and social freedom movement under the aegis of an independent trade union. The purpose of the imposition of martial law was to restore the existing social system and thus consolidate the pro-Soviet, communist power in Poland for an indefinite period.

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Dziennik, as a Polish diaspora newspaper, was the daily paper for Poles in Germany. It served informational purposes as well as cultural and social integration of the Polish population dispersed in Berlin. During World War I and re-emigration, it became a source of information about the social situation of compatriots in the area of ​​the reborn Polish state and the organizational condition of the Polish population in Germany. It constantly reported on international and economic matters of Poland. Young Poles who lived and studied in Berlin assisted in editing it. They presented national views on its pages.

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After the third partition, the area of ​​the seized Polish lands constituted more than half of the territory of Prussia, while Poles constituted almost half of its population. Since then, for 123 years, until 1918, Poland did not exist as a sovereign state.

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Although Russia has officially acknowledged the perpetration of the Katyn massacre, this truth is virtually absent from Russian historiography today. For it does not fit into the myth of the great victory of the war, any more than the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939, the mass deportations, the enslavement of the Baltic republics, or the colossal scale of the Red Army's marauding in the final phase of the Second World War.

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