Warsaw and Washington, D.C. (PMN)—Polish Defense Minister
Bogdan Klich said on January 19, 2010, that U.S. Patriot missiles
will be stationed in northern Poland about 60 miles from the border
with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, rather than near Warsaw.
Polish Radio cited Klich as saying the decision to set up a Patriot
site in the outskirts of the town of Morag, which is much closer to
the Russian border than Warsaw, does not bear any strategic
consideration.
Klich stated, "In Morag we could offer
the best conditions for American soldiers and the best technical
base for the equipment."
Poland and the United States signed a
Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in December, 2009, laying out the
conditions for the deployment of U.S. troops on Polish soil.
According to the SOFA, U.S. troops will service Patriot missiles
that are to be integrated into Poland’s national security system. The Patriot unit will be manned by some
100 U.S. soldiers, and will comprise up to eight missile launchers.
The first U.S. troop rotation is expected to arrive in Poland by the
end of March.
Russia strongly opposed the previous
U.S. administration's plans to place ten long-range ground-based
interceptor missiles in Poland and a fixed-site radar station in the
Czech Republic. When agreeing to host the missile site, Warsaw
demanded the Patriots’ deployment to improve its defensive
capabilities.
The Patriot (MIM-104) is a theater
air-defense system designed to counter tactical ballistic missiles,
cruise missiles and advanced aircraft. Patriot missile systems were
successfully deployed by U.S. forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom
in 2003.
Baltimore, Maryland (PMN)—Danuta
Mostwin, an author, psychologist and sociologist who had been a
member of the Polish underground during World War II and whose
fiction chronicling the experiences of Polish émigrés earned her two
nominations for the Nobel Prize in literature, died January 11,
2010, of Parkinson’s disease at her Ruxton, Maryland, home. She was
88.
Dr. Mostwin was born Danuta
Pietruszewski in Lublin, Poland, and she completed high school in
Warsaw in 1939. She had planned to be a playwright, but turned her
attention to studying for a medical career after the outbreak of
World War II. After Germany occupied her homeland, Mostwin had to
study at an underground medical school held at the University of
Warsaw.
During the war years, she and her
family were active in the resistance movement. "The house in which
she lived with her mother (her father was with part of the Polish
military in London) served as a shelter and meeting point for
couriers who had been parachuted into Poland," said her son, Dr.
Jacek Mostwin, a urologist who lives in Ruxton. In 1944, she met a
young Polish freedom fighter, Stanislaw B. Mostwin, who became her
husband. With the end of the war and the Russian occupation of
Poland, and with her husband facing arrest by the secret police, the
couple and her mother fled to England. In 1951, the couple and their
young son immigrated to New York and then to Baltimore.
Her experience as an immigrant became a
profound influence on both her life and writing. Critics and
scholars consider her major work to be her seven-volume Polish saga,
a historical narrative that chronicles a Polish family from 1863 to
the present. Her work was nominated in 2000 and 2006 for the Nobel
Prize in literature.
Dr. Mostwin and Senator Barbara A.
Mikulski were co-founders in 1982 of the Maryland Action for Poland
committee, which provided material relief to those in Poland who
were affected by the declaration of martial law at that time. "She
was a freedom fighter, liberator, humanitarian, social worker and
mentor. She was a legend and a pioneer both in Poland and the United
States," Mikulski said.
Brooklyn, N.Y. (PMN)—Wanda Lorenc and
Wladyslaw Mazur are concentration camp survivors and veterans of
Poland’s Warsaw Uprising of 1944. They do not normally speak about
their wartime experiences at a Christmas party. But, with the large
number of children always present at the annual Christmas party of
the Polish American Congress (PC), President Frank Milewski and
Political Activities Chairman Chet Szarejko invited them to spend a
few moments to tell the children what it was like to live as a
teenager in German-occupied Poland in World War II.
"Holocaust studies in public schools
don’t usually accentuate the story of Polish Catholics like Mrs.
Lorenc and Mr. Mazur. We thought our Polish American kids should be
made aware of what such people went through," said Szarejko, a
former history teacher on Long Island.
Both speakers were members of the
Polish Underground [Armia Krajowa - AK] and both were arrested by
the Germans and sent to concentration camps.
During the Uprising, Mazur miraculously
survived two German bullets that grazed his neck and a third one
that pierced into his hip. Even a German soldier’s rifle butt to his
head was unable to finish him off. While a prisoner in a German
concentration camp, an SS guard kicked Lorenc’s face to a bloody
pulp after she threw a piece of bread to a starving and pleading
Jew. She considered herself lucky because she could have gotten a
bullet in her head instead.
Lorenc’s parents and a brother are
honored at Israel’s Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for
rescuing and sheltering twelve Jews during the Holocaust. Another
brother was part of an Armia Krajowa unit that tried to blow out a
hole in the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto to let Jews escape. But,
neither this brother nor Lorenc were ever honored as "Righteous,"
because the Jews they helped were not around to testify that the
events really happened. Israel’s Yad Vashem does not count anyone
this way unless the rescued Jew will validate it.
Warsaw (PMN)—"Rabbit a la Berlin" ["Krolik
po Berlinsku"] has
been nominated for an Oscar in the Best Short Documentary category.
The film is a Polish-German co-production of Anna Wydra MS Films,
TVP and ma.ja.de filmproduktion, MDR, RBB in association with ARTE,
YLE, Lichtpunt and VPRO. It is supported by the Polish Film
Institute, MEDIA Programme of the European Union and Andrzej Wajda
Master School of Film Directing.
Directed by Bartek Konopka, "Rabbit a
la Berlin" tells the story of thousands of wild rabbits which
inhabited the so-called "death zone" of the Berlin Wall, a strip of
land between two walls full of fresh grass and ideal for the
animals. For years the rabbits lived there, the guards of the Wall
keeping them safe.
"The film is an allegory presenting the
history of Eastern Europe from a rabbit’s perspective," said TVP
spokeswoman, Aleksandra Biernacka, from TVP’s division of film
festivals.
Other nominees for Oscar in Short
Documentary category include: China’s "Unnatural Disaster: The Tears
of Sichuan Province" about children killed in an earthquake in China
in 2008, "The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner" about the
legalization of assisted suicide, "The Last Truck: Closing of a GM
Plant," about unemployment, and "Music by Prudence," about s
disabled Zimbabwean singer.
Film critic Andrzej Kolodynski, editor
of the monthly Kino [Cinema], told Polish Radio Information
Agency (IAR) that "Rabbit a la Berlin" stands a great chance to win
an Oscar. "It is a unique, thought-provoking film which shows a
certain political situation in Europe in a brilliant and intelligent
way," he said.
The winner of the Academy Awards will
be announced on March 7, 2010.
Washington, D.C. (PMN)—"The Peasant
Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution" by Alex
Storozynski, continues to win prizes for its contribution to the
understanding of American and European History.
On October 15, 2009, this biography of
Kosciuszko won the Templar Military History Award, the "Military
Order of Saint Louis."
In Warsaw, on November 22, 2009,
Poland's Foreign Minister, Radek Sikorski, awarded Alex Storozynski,
author of The Peasant Prince with the "Ministry of Foreign Affair’s
Laureate Diploma" for outstanding merit in promoting Polish Culture
throughout the world.
At its annual meeting in San Diego, on
January 9, 2010, The Polish American Historical Association (PAHA),
an affiliate of the American Historical Association, awarded the
Oskar Halecki Prize to "The Peasant Prince" as "an important
monograph that has contributed to the Polish experience in the
United States."
On February 2, 2010, Storozynski was
awarded The Tadeusz Walendowski Prize from the Polish Library in
Washington, D.C. Walendowski was a journalist, filmmaker and
dissident, who edited the underground magazine Puls [Pulse]
during the communist era in Poland. He later settled in the United
States and worked for the Voice of America, and co-founded the
Polish Library in Washington, D.C.
Brooklyn, New York (PMN)—An appeal to
have Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial honor the memory of
1,000 Catholic nuns who hid and protected Jewish children during the
German occupation of Poland in World War II was turned down by the
Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem.
The request came from Paul Wos of
Sarasota, Florida who was a citizen of Poland at the time of the
Holocaust. Together with his parents, now deceased, he rescued and
sheltered twelve members from two Jewish families during the
liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. In 1998, Yad Vashem
designated Wos and his parents as Righteous Among the Nations for
helping these Jews.
As a "Righteous," Wos feels each of
these nuns deserves the recognition just as much as he. The only
obstacle is the fact Yad Vashem will not count any aid given a Jew
eligible for such recognition unless the Jewish person who was aided
steps forth and confirms it with his or her testimony. The Wos
family received such testimony from the Jews they saved.
In his appeal, Wos stated, "an
estimated 2,000 Jewish children were saved [by the nuns]. At least
1,000 of these religious women took part in this humanitarian
project. Yet, only 20 or 30 of this 1,000 plus are officially
honored by Israel."
As passionate as he is about seeing
every act of Christian charity properly acknowledged, Wos says he
understands why Yad Vashem wants to be as cautious and restrictive
as it is. But, he wonders if there might be a fundamental problem
with a procedure which finds only 3% of the rescuers deserving of
remembrance.
Wos was a member of the Armia Krajowa
[Home Army], Poland's anti-German, anti-Communist underground
resistance and a survivor of the Flossenburg concentration camp. He
is a consultant to the Holocaust Documentation Committee of the
Polish American Congress (PAC) and its Children of Polish Christian
Holocaust Survivors.
He had been a resident of Sea Cliff,
New York, for many years and has just relocated to Sarasota,
Florida.
Atlanta, Georgia (PMN)—"Dreams and
Deeds" was the theme of this year’s National Conference for Social
Studies (NCSS) in Atlanta, Georgia, which took place November 13-15,
2009. Once again the American Council for Polish Culture (ACPC) took
advantage of this opportunity for its "Polish Perspectives" manned
booths to interact with teachers, providing them with historically
accurate facts and highlighting Polish contributions to American and
world history that are not readily available in American text books.
Barbara Lamecha reported recently on the participation of the ACPC.
At this 89th Annual Conference with a
gathering of 4,000 educators, ACPC presented Polish perspectives on
World War II and Polish contributions to the Allied victory. Because
the year 2009 marked the 70th Anniversary of the beginning of WWII
and the 20th of the Solidarity Movement’s success in expelling
Communism, materials were prepared that highlighted Poland’s
accomplishments during those periods of time.
ACPC invested in a new display unit and
filled it with educational posters that were acquired especially for
this year’s conference. The poster "Poland First to Fight" was the
main focus, supported by posters featuring Irena Sendler’s heroic
deeds, the Battle of Monte Cassino, Solidarity, and a few other
posters bearing significant historical facts. Also on display was
the poster dedicated to the Kosciuszko Squadron, which was created
by the Polish Cultural Club of Greater Hartford.
The ACPC display tables were piled high
with books and other printed materials such as: "A Question of
Honor", "Null and Void", "Warsaw Uprising", "Enigma", "Night of
Flames", "The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt", and perennial
favorites "Zegota" and "Legacy of the White Eagle." Available
for distribution were smaller versions of the posters on display,
book marks, WWII documentary DVDs, and ACPC’s custom designed CD
containing many resources hyperlinked to websites of all the
supporting organizations, as well as other resources.
Another very important addition this
year was the WWII brochure "For Your Freedom and Ours," reprinted by
ACPC with permission from the Polish Combatants of Canada. All 4,000
conference registrants received a copy in their NCSS convention tote
bags.
For the first time, the ACPC presented
a program before a live audience, "World War II: Perspectives on
Fear." It was selected as a presenter by the NCSS Planning Committee
out of 900 applicants. The presentation was followed by a "question
and answer" session.
Washington, D.C. (PMN)—A two-day
conference commemorating the life and works of the prolific Polish
avant-garde writer and artist Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (better
known as Witkacy) is scheduled for Thursday and Friday, February
25-26, 2010, at the National Polish Center in Washington, D.C.
Witkacy’s impressive contributions to
drama, literature, painting, portraiture, photography, and
philosophy reflected a unique world view that often intimately
combined artistic form with socio-political content. On the 125th
anniversary of his birth, National Polish Center aims to reassess
his work, to demonstrate his continuing relevance in the 21st
Century, and to build on the growing and diverse studies devoted to
the artist in Poland and in the U.S.
The Center has issued a call for papers
and contributions to the topic: "Witkacy: 21st Century
Perspectives." A selection committee will consider all submissions,
but will favor those devoted to studies that focus on the interplay
of the individual versus society in Witkacy’s work across the
genres.
Contact Mark Rudnicki at
mrudnick@gmu.edu regarding the
deadline and rules for submission of abstracts, which should be
250-300 words in length and sent in a Microsoft Word document.
The conference keynote speakers will be
Prof. Lech Sokol of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and
Prof. Daniel Gerould of C.U.N.Y. For more information on the
conference and other events surrounding the Witkacy2010 Festival,
visit
http://www.witkacy2010.com .
Information about the National Polish
Center may be found at
http://www.nationalpolishcenter.org .