Poland

There is an urgent need for Polish Americans and Poles to join in the process of crafting Poland’s short-term and long-term strategy for success aimed to improve her cultural, economic, and political relevance. Polish Americans are a part of Poland’s diaspora, often called Polonia. Short-term strategy should describe desired status of Poland five years into the future and identify actions needed to reach that goal. Long-term strategy should span the next twenty-five years. We should include strategic flows and connectivity in this strategy.

This year, January 27, was the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the German concentration camp in Oświęcim (Auschwitz). It was a very quiet anniversary, virtual, hardly mentioned in any media. Paying tribute to all those murdered in this camp, we are reminded of one of them who survived and lived among us in Chicago.

I listen with great attention to the serious and insecure voices coming from Poland about cooperation with the United States after the dramatic end of President Trump's term of office. I can hardly believe the opinions of serious politicians, who attacked the Biden administration from the very start, without even scratching the surface of the American foreign policy. I would like to remind everyone that, in politics, it is not morality that counts, only the interests of a given state.

Historical truth is an objective reality, existing regardless of the situation that could distort it. It is something that is happening today, or has happened in the past. It is the responsibility of each of us to investigate, learn about, and be faithful to it. Very often historical truth falls victim to politics, is twisted, manipulated and replaced with lies. The generation that knew the facts is dying out. There is only hope that the documents it left behind will help in finding out the truth.

Today, it is difficult to avoid the omnipresent news about the course of vaccinations against COVID-19, or about their alleged risks and harmful effects, or about their effectiveness, or lack thereof. Many people express their opinions on this subject, both publicly and privately, but few really understand how – on the basis of which principles – these vaccines work at all, what their mechanism is, what their risks are, and how they are different and novel, compared to the traditional ones. We all know that they were developed and approved for use extremely quickly – as far as vaccines go – in less than a year; but hardly anyone realizes why it was even possible. Let's try here, at least in part, to answer these questions and, along the way, point to the partially Polish origin of the technology that made these vaccines possible.

Medicine and art are two different fields so it is not easy to compare and assess them directly. For me the most important has always been the human being and his or her life. Life is the most important value in our stay on Earth. Our existence here and now, on the most beautiful planet in the Universe, is connected with having a soul and a body.

The end of World War I in 1918 brought Europe and the world a whole new political and economic reality. Monarchies have fallen, many nations regained independence, but a new ideological threat has also arisen, which would bring a new war in the near future. That threat was communism and fascism. The borders between countries have shifted or were shaped anew, but the population in most cases stayed where they were. In the new demographic reality, the situation of national minorities, including the Polish minority in Germany and the German minority in Poland, was an important problem to be solved.

The Polish diaspora in America was very politically active, and so numerous Polish journalists, lawyers, politicians, doctors, Polish priests, nuns and Polish community activists created an efficient pro-Polish lobbying. It was in 1966 that the idea arose for the American Post Office to print a Millennium stamp. The idea was not to be limited only to the Polish circles, but it was probably the first global idea to issue an American postage stamp with the Polish emblem of the Second Polish Republic crowned with a Catholic cross. The graphic design was commissioned to the Polish artist Edmund Lewandowski, born in Milwaukee

Unfortunately, we will not be able to celebrate the hundred-year jubilee of one of the greatest personalities of Polish science. We report with sadness that on Wednesday, December 16, 2020, at the age of 99, professor Wacław Szybalski, an outstanding researcher, a true genius of molecular genetics, called the "king of genetics", repeatedly mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize, honorary doctor of many universities, passed away. In prof. Wacław Szybalski, we say farewell to an excellent specialist in genetics and molecular medicine, and to the father of the so-called synthetic biology. He was a world-class scientist, mentor, educator, model for many Polish researchers, and - at the same time - a great Pole and an active patriot.

In Poland, Christmas Eve, December 24, is considered the most special night of the year. It is a night on which, according to legend, even animals speak with a human voice. The tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve is inherently associated with an official supper held within the closest family circle, during which only vegetarian dishes are consumed.

In August of 1944, on the fourth day of the Warsaw Uprising, a German bullet pierced the forehead of one of the soldiers fighting in the Theatre Square. The dead insurgent was 23 years old. History would have probably erased this death from our memory, as it was done in the case of thousands of unknown defenders of Warsaw. This one name would not have upset the enormous balance of human losses, bad it not belonged to a soldier who was one of the most outstanding poets of the, war' s younger generation, in whom his contemporaries saw Słowacki’s successor…