80 years ago, after murdering about 200,000 Warsaw residents and robbing their property, the Germans demolished entire districts, house by house, brick by brick. Poles rebuilt Warsaw materially, brick by brick, house by house. It is much more difficult to rebuild the memory of that Warsaw and its residents, who, after 5 years of humiliation and terror, stood up almost defenseless to fight their tormentors.
Recently, the Bydgoszcz publishing house “Koronis” published Józef Kuffel’s book “The Phantom of Freedom” (Widmo wolności), dedicated to the participant Mrs. Stanisława “Stella” Calińska (née Walasek). She died in Petaluma in northern California in mid-July 2022. 97-year-old Mrs. Stanisława returned to "her" Warsaw in September and with the honorary assistance of the Polish Army, the urn with her ashes was placed in the family grave at the Bródnowski Cemetery in the capital. Józef Kuffel’s book, dedicated to the “girl from the Uprising”, is one of those bricks of Warsaw destroyed by the Germans, scattered all over the world, which complete their lives and sometimes return to the places of their heroic days.
Stanisława Calińska
The book is beautifully published, richly illustrated with photos from the private collections of the deceased's family, as well as copies of photos and documents from the Uprising and related to the veteran's environments and undertakings. It should be noted that the author approached his task very seriously and in each chapter tries to outline the background of the general situation, not avoiding presenting the international situation of the Uprising illustrated with copies of documents and orders. Copies of insurgent magazines, posters, food stamps and photos are also very interesting. The author enriches his texts with a large portion of patriotic poetry reflecting the tragic spirit of the participants and observers of the martyrdom of those days.
I don't want to reveal too many details of the eventful life of "Stella", because that can be found in the book. I will only mention that she was born in 1925, in the village of Opatkowice in Puławy County, and grew up in the company of 3 sisters and a brother. She reached her sister in occupied Warsaw in 1940, joining the underground Home Army. During the uprising, she was a specialist in the production of "Molotov cocktails", supplies and care for the wounded. In Kuffel's book we will find accounts of several accidental miraculous "saves" of Stella and her sisters.
In 1970, Stanisława boarded the ship "Stefan Batory" and landed in New York, where she spent 15 years. In 1971, she married Bronisław Caliński. In 1972, she brought her daughter Elżbieta and two "insurgent" sisters to New York. In 1986, she moved to San Francisco and settled in the 60,000-strong (founded around 1858) old (for California) town of Petaluma, in Sonoma County, located on the Petaluma River. The author included a lot of interesting information about the history of Petaluma, supporting the text with a rich photo service.
The author discusses Stella's life and her involvement in the Polish Veterans Association in the San Francisco area and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. I remember once being a guest of Mrs. Stanisława's at her birthday party in Walnut Creek - she had many friends. In the book we see photos of many distinguished Poles from the San Francisco area, whom I had the pleasure of meeting after my arrival in San Francisco in December 1983. Today, only a few are alive. A few years later, I founded and became president of the Home Army Foundation in northern California with them. I knew these people quite well and I should write about it sometime. The author also writes and posts photos of "Nasza Gazetka" from the San Francisco area, directed by Gabriel Michta, who came from "Solidarity" in Miechów near Kraków. With Gabryś and other Poles, we created the biweekly "Wiadomości" in 1986 (it was published for 4 years), so we knew each other quite well.
On the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, Krakow schools, in agreement with the Krowodrza Library and Polish Radio in Krakow, initiated the program "A Card for an Insurgent". School children, who were introduced to Stella's fight in the Uprising, drew cards and wrote letters to Mrs. Stanisława Calińska from Petaluma, California! The campaign was led by Mrs. Halina Nowakowska and a poet Alicja Biedrzycka. These cards and letters from children moved Stella greatly and brought her much joy. There were tears of joy...
The last, probably the most valuable part of the book is filled with correspondence between the Author Józef Kuffel and Mrs. Stanisława and her daughter Elżbieta from Petaluma, up to the day of the funeral in Poland, where the Author met the daughter of the late Stanisława Calińska.
Stella's brick, vibrant with patriotism, found its rightful place both in the Polish land, for which she had longed all her life, and first through the Krakow campaign "Postcard for the Insurgent" and now through Józef Kuffel's book "The Phantom of Freedom" under the proverbial Polish roofs as an example also for children that Poland is a Great Cause, for which one must give even one's life in the event of a threat to its existence...
I highly recommend this book, which can be purchased in the US by writing (or calling) the following address:
books@polonia.com
Agata Szymczyk
Polonia Bookstore
www.polonia.com
tel. 773-481-6968
In Poland you can write directly to the “Koronis” publishing house:
koronis@1gb.pl
tel. +48 523 737 988
Translation from Polish by Andrew Woźniewicz.
