POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL • FEBRUARY 2013 www.polamjournal.com 1 FEBRUARY 2013 • VOL. 102, NO. 2 $2.00 JANE KRAKOWSKI PERIOdICAL POSTAGE PAId AT BOSTON, NEW YORK NEW BOSTON, AT PAId PERIOdICAL POSTAGE POLISH AMERICAN OFFICES ANd AddITIONAL ENTRY JOURNALESTABLISHED 1911 www.polamjournal.com POLISH AMERICANS MAKE THEIR MARK IN THE ARTS dEdICATEd TO THE PROMOTION ANd CONTINUANCE OF POLISH AMERICAN CULTURE PAGE 15 WIELKI POST – STILL WORTH OBSERVING? • STONE PAINTS CATHOLIC POLES AS ANTI-SEMITES • A NEW POLISH BLESSED WINNERS OF OUR MATT URBAN SCHOLARSHIP CONTEST • SO YOU THINK YOUR KIEŁBASA IS THE BEST? RARE BOOKS NEED YOUR HELP • LINCOLN IGNORED POLES, FETED THE CZAR • PĄCZKI AND FAWORKI TIME NEWSMARK A Resplendent Quasquicentennial PolAm Baseball PHOTO: ANDRZEJTRZECIAK “MOST WANTED” INSURGENT CAPTURED. A senior Great Stan Musial leader of the Afghan Taliban has been captured in a joint Dead at 92 operation between Polish soldiers and Afghan police of- fi cers near Spinde village in the eastern Ghazni province. Mullah Abdul Kabir is thought to be one of the most ac- tive insurgent commanders in the region and responsible, claim Polish armed forces, for a roadside attack on NATO convoy in December 2011 in Ghazni, leaving six Polish soldiers dead, and another attack in August of that year, killing one Polish soldier. “He is charged with the mass murder of innocent Af- ghani civilians as well as the kidnapping and atrocious murders of local administration offi cials and members of the local police,” Capitan Janusz Blaszczak from the Pol- ish contingent in Afghanistan press offi ce told Polish Ra- dio. The 54-year-old Mullah Abdul Kabir was arrested in early January during an attempted robbery, says Capitan MUSIAL. A quintessential Blaszczak. Cardinal and proud Polish Abdul Kabir has been in the Top 10 of the Joint Priori- American. tized Effects List of most wanted insurgents in Afghanistan for the last fi ve years. by Robert Strybel HOLY ROSARY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH in Baltimore, Maryland, adorned in much ST. LOUIS — Stanley RUSSIAN SERVICEMEN FACE TRAIL IN SMOLENSK finery, is depicted above during its Jubilee Mass, December 9, 2012. It was attended by 500 Musial, one of baseball’s all- CRASH. Four Russian servicemen will face trial for pil- persons, including parishioner U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski and other dignitaries. Bishop time greats, died at his St. laging the wreckage of Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s Denis J. Madden was the Main Celebrant, assisted by parishioner Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski Louis County home, January plane which crashed near the city of Smolensk in 2010. and 10 other priests. Story on page 3. 19, surrounded by family and In charge of cordoning off the crash site, they each face friends. His health had de- up to six years in prison. Country Mourns Firefi ghter, 19, Victim of Murder clined in recent years as a re- sult of various affl ictions in- The case has been submitted to the Smolensk Harrison WEBSTER, N.Y. — responders. Military Court. cluding Alzheimer’s disease, One of Polonia’s young- Kaczowka was born in Rochester on May and he was under hospice The plane carrying Lech Kaczynski, his wife and a est and brightest lost his 16, 1993 to Janina and Marian Kaczowka. host of Polish high-level offi cials crashed in thick fog near care when he quietly passed life in the line of duty. After graduating from Webster high School away at the age of 92. Smolensk on April 10, 2010, killing 96 people. Tomasz Marian Kac- in 2011, he dedicated himself to civil service, Stan “the Man” Musial zowka, 19, was killed on working the overnight shift as an emergency was the greatest player in SOLDIERS WOUNDED. Three Polish soldiers were Christmas Eve, together dispatch operator for the City of Rochester the history of the St. Louis wounded in Afghanistan as they were on a routine patrol with his friend and men- and waking up at all hours of the night to re- Cardinals and the quintes- in the province of Ghazni, eastern Afghanistan. A fi ght en- tor police lieutenant Mi- spond to various emergencies. He became in- sential Cardinal down to sued after the patrol was fi red upon by the enemy. chael Chiapperini, 43, volved in fi refi ghting as an Explorer, becom- the very end. Musial played The injured Poles were evacuated by helicopter to the when ex-con William ing a full member a year ago. his entire 22-season career U.S. military base hospital at Bagram, Parwan Province. Spengler fi red at them and two other fi refi ght- Kaczowka and his family were active mem- with the Cardinals, from Polish troops have been serving in Afghanistan since ers as they arrived to battle a blaze in the sub- bers of Rochester’s St. Stanislaus Church. 1941 to 1963. A .331 life- 2002 and are scheduled to cease all combat operations by urb of Rochester. Spengler had lured them to The stunning Christmas decorations he and time batter, Musial hit .300 his neighborhood by setting a house and car his father helped to set up just a few days the end of this year. To date, thirty seven Poles have died or better 16 straight seasons, on fi re and then lying in wait to kill the fi rst See “Kaczowka,” page 4 on duty in Afghanistan. See “Musial,” page 4 NOBEL PRIzE WINNERS TO MEET. Former Soviet lead- er Mikhail Gorbachov, the Dalai Lama, and former South The Copernican Legacy African President Frederik de Klerk have confi rmed their The following was deliv- based on long observations of participation in a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize winners to ered by Dr. Thaddeus V. Gro- the skies and mathematical be held in Warsaw in October. mada — Professor Emeritus calculations. With incredible The meeting is to be hosted by the Lech Wałęsa Institute of European History, New boldness Kopernik repudiat- and will mark the 30th anniversary of awarding the then Jersey City University, and ed the geo-centric Ptolomaic chairman of the Solidarity Trade Union with the Nobel past Executive Director and system accepted for over a Peace Prize and will coincide with Wałęsa’s 70th birthday. President of the Polish In- thousand years and asserted Invitations have also been extended to former U.S. stitute of Arts & Sciences of that the sun was the center of President Jimmy Carter and the leader of the Burmese op- America — at the 40th Anni- our solar system and the earth position Aung San Suu Kyi. versary Gala Celebration of just one of the heavenly bod- Nobel Peace Prize winners have held regular meetings the Kopernik Memorial Asso- ies revolving around it. This for over ten years now. Recent meetings were held in Chi- ciation of Central New York, conception paved the way for cago, Berlin, and Rome. Utica, N.Y., on Nov. 3, 2012. Galileo, Kepler, and Newton We feel they are worth repeat- MIKOŁAJ KOPERNIK (Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473–1543) and marked the birth of mod- A STATUE FOR “WOJTEK.” A bear who saw action in ing on the 540th anniversary was a mathematician and astronomer who proposed that ern science making today’s World War II could be immortalized by a statue in Edin- of Kopernik’s birth, February the sun was stationary in the center of the universe and the space age possible. Just think burgh’s Princes Street Gardens. 19, 1473, in Toruń, Poland. earth revolved around it. At the time, Kopernik’s heliocentric of it! Truly, a universal man Wojtek — dubbed the “Soldier Bear” — was adopted idea was very controversial; nevertheless, it was the start of of the Renaissance, Koper- by Polish troops and helped them carry ammunition at the by Thaddeus Gromada a change in the way the world was viewed, and Kopernik nik was not only one of the Battle of Monte Cassino. There are good reasons for came to be seen as the initiator of the Scientifi c Revolution. greatest astronomers of all After the war, he lived in Scotland at Hutton in Ber- you and other Polish Ameri- titan, one of the greatest ge- freed men from ignorance. time, but he was a physician wickshire, before ending his days in Edinburgh Zoo. cans to be proud of Kopernik niuses who has ever lived on His book, “De Revolutionibus by training and predilection, The Wojtek Memorial Trust Fund has now raised over and share in some way in his this planet. He belongs to the Orbium Coelestum” written an economist who formulated $300,000 to create two statues; one for Edinburgh and an- greatness. He was born in To- real greats, in the class of Ar- probably between 1515 and the law of bad money, later other that will go to Poland. This year marks the 50 year run, Poland in 1473 whose istotle, Newton, Darwin, Ein- 1532 but not published until known as Gresham’s law, 32 anniversary of Wojtek’s death. family originally came from stein, who have made revo- 1543 when Kopernik was 70 years before it was devised Śląsk. No doubt he was a lutionary breakthroughs and years old and near death, was See “Copernicus,” page 4 2 www.polamjournal.com POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL • FEBRUARY 2013 ALMANAC VIEWPOINTS / Robert Strybel Follow us on Facebook or visit us Wielki Post – Still Worth Observing? on the internet at: polamjournal.com PolAms who attended parochial schools in you happen to be. You or your group can prepare and exercise goals (so many sit-ups or so many their childhood recall the concept of “giving food parcels for poorer residents or families or minutes of jogging) as well as being nice to Q something up” for Lent.