The Kos’ciuszko Chair of Polish Studies Miller Center of Public Affairs University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia

Bulletin Number Three Fall 2003 On the Cover:

The symbol of the KoÊciuszko Squadron was designed by Lt. Elliot Chess, one of a group of Americans who helped the fledgling Polish air force defend its skies from Bolshevik invaders in 1919 and 1920. Inspired by the example of Tadeusz KoÊciuszko, who had fought for American independence, the American volunteers named their unit after the Polish and American hero. The logo shows thirteen stars and stripes for the original Thirteen Colonies, over which is KoÊciuszko’s four-cornered cap and two crossed scythes, symbolizing the peasant volunteers who, led by KoÊciuszko, fought for Polish freedom in 1794. After the Polish-Bolshevik war ended with Poland’s victory, the symbol was adopted by the Polish 111th KoÊciuszko Squadron. In September 1939, this squadron was among the first to defend Warsaw against Nazi bombers. Following the Polish defeat, the squadron was reformed in Britain in 1940 as Royal Air Force’s 303rd KoÊciuszko. This Polish unit became the highest scoring RAF squadron in the Battle of Britain, often defending London itself from Nazi raiders. The 303rd bore this logo throughout the war, becoming one of the most famous and successful squadrons in the Second World War.

The title of our bulletin, Nihil Novi, invokes Poland’s ancient constitution of 1505. It declared that there would be “nothing new about us without our consent.” In essence, it drew on the popular sentiment that its American version expressed as “no taxation without representation.” The Nihil Novi constitution guar- anteed that “nothing new” would be enacted in the country without the consent of the Parliament (Sejm). Thus, the Parliament became the supreme institution of the nation. The Polish King was elected for life as chief executive. At the time, up to 15% of the inhabitants of Poland were entitled to vote, a level of fran- chise surpassed only by the United States and England in the early nineteenth century.

The KoÊciuszko Chair in Polish Studies c/o American Institute of Polish Culture 144079th Street Causeway Suite 117 Miami, FL 33141 Phone: (305) 864-2349 Fax: (305) 865-5150 E-mail: [email protected]

Nihil Novi Editor-in-chief: Dr. M.J. Chodakiewicz – e-mail [email protected] Editors: Dr. Dariusz To∏czyk Dr. John Radzi∏owski Theresa M. Dudzik

Photographs by: Bo˝enna Urbanowicz Bilbride, Waldemar Dowiak, Tom Cogill, and others Special thanks to: Cyrille Rogacki, Mrs. Molly Ulam, Rachel Kelly, Dr. Adam Su∏kowski, Richard Tyndorf, John Tytus, and Robert Johnston Lay-out of Nihil Novi by: Pixels Prepress, Charlottesville, VA The Kos’ciuszko Chair of Polish Studies Miller Center of Public Affairs University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia

The KoÊciuszko Chair Message 2 The 2002-2003 KoÊciuszko Chair Report 3 Publications of the KoÊciuszko Chair Fall 2002-Fall 2003: 6 A Speech by the President of the United States 8 Cracow, Poland, June 1, 2003 (excerpts) After NATO Enlargement: What Next? 10 (Excerpts from the speech by Dr. Zbigniew Brzeziƒski, December 16, 2002) Emboldening the Freedom Fighter (A Summary) 10 Dr. John Lenczowski Ronald Reagan: Security, Prosperity, Freedom! 11 The Polish-Canadian Technical and Engineering Tradition 14 by Mark W´gierski Motivations for Popular Support of EU Accession in Poland since 1989: 15 The Role of National Pride as an Assimilative Force Dr. Adam Józef Su∏kowski Notes & Quotes 17 Book Reviews 24 Briefly on Books 40 Pro Memoriam: 42 To Our Friends 48 Marian Hemar, Termos Nihil Novi

The KoÊciuszko Chair Message

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We are in our fifth year of operation here at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. We would like to thank all those who have facilitated our mis- sion at the Miller Center and at the History Department between October 1998 and October 2003, in particular Dr. Kenneth Thompson, Dr. Philip Zelikow, and Dr. Chuck McCurdy. After the inaugural ceremony in October 1998, it took two years before the arrival of the first chairholder, Professor Wojciech Roszkowski, who set up the KoÊciuszko Chair (KC) academically and charted the scope of its scholarly opera- Thaddeus KoÊciuszko tions. Teaching, researching, and writing became integral parts of our activities. Dr. Poland’s history as we have supported cul- Marek Jan Chodakiewicz joined the KC tural events, including concerts and art team in May 2001 and has stayed the course exhibitions, and lectures by outside schol- after the departure of Professor ars with Polish connections. In essence, the Roszkowski in June 2002. We have taught KC has become a transcontinental, multi- classes at UVA and at other universities, cultural, and multidisciplinary affair. Yet, it including summer school in Rome and Los has remained unshakably faithful to the Angeles. We have lectured and delivered intent of the founders of the Chair: to pro- papers throughout the United States: at mote Polish studies. universities, scholarly conferences, and, We keep in touch with our friends last but not least, Polish American cultural and supporters by means of our yearly bul- events. We have also traveled to Poland to letin: Nihil Novi. This is its third issue, a joint lecture and share the latest in American effort of the KC and its volunteer supporters. scholarship. We have expanded beyond Please read on.

Ronald Trzcinski Dr. Phillip Zelikow, Lady Blanka Rosenstiel and Director of the Miller Center Professor Kenneth Thompson

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The 2002-2003 KoÊciuszko Chair Report

At home and away Background to the Events in Ejszyszki: An Epilogue to Polish-Jewish Relations in the Eastern During the Fall 2002 semester Dr. Borderlands, 1944-1945: Recollections, Documents, Chodakiewicz alternated between home at Essays. He also delivered a lecture on “The image Charlottesville, VA, and “near abroad” in of Poles during the Second World War in con- Washington, DC, to research. At UVA, he guest temporary Jewish-American eyes.” Many thanks lectured in Marc Selverstone’s HIEU 352 class on to Fronda Publishers and, in particular, “The Second World War.” The topics of his lec- Grzegorz Górny for bringing out the book and tures were “The World of Extremes: Europe,” organizing the promotion. Dr. Chodakiewicz and “Stalingrad and Kursk.” also took advantage of his sojourn in Poland to During the Spring 2003 semester, thanks to acquaint himself with the latest in Polish histori- Professor Chuck McCurdy, Dr. Chodakiewicz ography, namely the newest monographs not yet taught a class on “Poland and East Central available at US libraries. Europe since 1918” (HIEU 218). The enrollment Back in the US, on April 3, 2003, at the was high, reaching about 40 students. Some stu- Convention of the Association for the Study of dents eagerly expressed their willingness to Nationalities held at Columbia University in learn Polish and further study Polish culture. New York, Dr. Chodakiewicz spoke at the panel Professor Dariusz To∏czyk offers such a course in “Issues of Identity in Poland Past and Present.” the Fall of 2003. His topic was “Poland’s Fragebogen: Collective Meanwhile, in the first half of 2003, many of Stereotypes, Individual Recollections.” This, in the outside speaking engagements of the KC essence, was also a book promotion, concerning concerned the European Union. On January 26, Poland’s Transformation: A Work in Progress 2003, Dr. Chodakiewicz participated in a panel (Leopolis Press 2003), a recently published col- discussion on the “Pros and Cons of Poland’s lection of KC conference papers. Accession to the European Union” at the Knights Traditonally, the KC participated in the of Columbus Hall in Silver Spring, Maryland. annual conference of the Polish Institute of Arts The other participants were Dr. Susanne and Sciences in America. On June 6, in Montreal, Lotarski, Director of Central and Eastern we co-organized a panel on “The Communist European Trade at the US Department of Secret Police in Poland: The Beating Heart of the Commerce, and Radek Sikorski, Executive Party.” It was chaired by John Radzi∏owski and Director of the New Atlantic Initiative at the the panelists included Dr. Ted Zawistowski, Dr. American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC. Adam Su∏kowski, and Dr. Chodakiewicz who The event was organized by the Polish American read his paper on “The Dialectics of Pain: The Congress, Washington Metropolitan Area Use of Torture by the Communist Secret Police Division, and we would like to thank Ted 1944-55.” Mirecki in particular. On January 31, 2003, Dr. During Summer 2003, thanks to the kind Chodakiewicz spoke about the European Union offices of Professor (Brother) John Grever, at the “Speakers Forum” of the Polish American Chairman of the Department of History at Cultural Center in Cleveland, Ohio. This engage- Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, ment was ably arranged by Eugene Bak. On Dr. Chodakiewicz taught two courses there: February 7, 2003, during the conference on the “History of Poland since 966” (History 498) and “European Union at the Crossroads,” at the “Western Civilization from 1500” (History 101). panel session on “Accession and Enlargement,” On July 20, he also delivered a lecture on Dr. Chodakiewicz talked about the EU and the “Property Restitution in Poland, 1989-2003.” The need for expansion of Polish and East Central event, which took place at the Polish Catholic European studies in American universities. The parish in Los Angeles, was organized by Jan M. conference was organized by the Miami Ma∏ek, President of the Polish-American European Union Center, University of Miami, Foundation for Economic Research and and the American Institute for Polish Culture. Education “Pro Publico Bono.” We would like to Further, during UVA’s Spring break, on thank Californians Edmund Lewandowski of March 6, at the City Center House of Culture in PAC and Marty Cepielik of News of Polonia for Warsaw, Poland, Dr. Chodakiewicz promoted media and internet coverage of the History of his newest book in Polish: Ejszyszki: The Poland class at LMU.

3 Nihil Novi

Lenczowski spoke about Poland’s role as an American ally and the necessity of reforming the nation’s economic and political structure. In par- ticular, he emphasized the need to lower taxes and to overhaul the Polish intelligence community. Both projects enjoyed the support of Professor Wojciech Roszkowski, who is back at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Our esteemed guests

As before, we continued our Polish speakers series at the University of Virginia. Organized by Professor Kenneth Thompson, Professor Julian Kulski these high-profile events became increasingly popular among the local community. On In addition, the KC was involved in two December 16, 2002, almost 200 people assembled important projects concerning Poland. In the to listen to Dr. Zbigniew Brzeziƒski. Dr. Spring of 2003, Dr. Chodakiewicz commenced Brzeziƒski considered the question of further cooperation with Professor Ralph Clem, co- NATO expansion in Eastern Europe. Currently a director of the Miami European Union Center counselor and trustee of the Center for Strategic and a scholar at Florida International University, and International Studies, he was national secu- regarding the Polish-EU referendum project. Dr. rity advisor to President Jimmy Carter. Chodakiewicz wrote an introductory essay on On January 24, 2003, former US Ambassador Polish politics and society for the purpose of this to Poland John Davis introduced Dr. John project. He also coordinated Professor Clem’s Lenczowski, who spoke about “Emboldening the visit to Poland in May and June 2003. During his Freedom Fighter” to an audience of nearly 100. mission to monitor the referendum, Professor The founder and president of the Institute of Clem was assisted by our 2002 KoÊciuszko Chair World Politics, Dr. Lenczowski headed the Soviet fellow Sebastian Bojemski. For the referendum and European desks at the National Security project, Sebastian collected raw data from the Council under President Ronald Reagan. Office of the Committee for European On March 3, 2003, Dariusz WiÊniewski Integration (OCEI), the Institute of Public spoke on “US-Polish Relations at the Beginning Affairs, and the National Electoral Office. He of the 20th Century.” Mr. WiÊniewski, who also consulted with Poland’s top EU experts, teaches US politics at the American Studies including Dr. Barbara Fedyszak-Radziejowska Center, University of Warsaw, was formerly (Polish Academy of Sciences), Dr. Jacek counselor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kucharczyk, Dr. Tomasz ˚ukowski (University Poland and political counselor at the Polish of Warsaw), and politicians, including Embassy in Washington, DC. Last but not least, Kazimierz M. Ujazdowski of the Law and Justice in April Professor Party and Roman Giertych of the League of Dariusz To∏czyk of Polish Families. Last but not least, Sebastian the Slavic Depart- arranged for Professor Clem to meet with Anna ment hosted Prof- Kamyczek of the Department of Economic and essor Julian Kulski. Social Analyses of the OCEI, Romuald The latter returned Drapiƒski, deputy director at the National to UVA to share Electoral Office, Henryk Bielski, counselor at the with us once again NEO, and Kazimierz M. Ujazdowski. his experiences dur- In June 2003, in a related project of the ing the Nazi occupa- KoÊciuszko Chair, Sebastian Bojemski and another tion of Poland in 2002 KC fellow, Wojciech Jerzy Muszyƒski, facili- general and the tated a meeting between Dr. John Lenczowski of Warsaw Uprising in the Institute of World Politics and a group of particular. Polish politicians at the Parliament in Warsaw. Dr. Dariusz WiÊniewski

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Research and writing ism, literature, property restitution, and collec- tive memory. In 2002 and 2003 we essentially finished In March 2003, Columbia University all research and writing projects commenced Press/East European Monographs published under the auspices of the KoÊciuszko Chair. After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Between September 2002 and February 2003, Wake of World War II by Marek Jan in our nation’s capital, at the US Holocaust Chodakiewicz. Many thanks to Professor Memorial Museum, Dr. Chodakiewicz Stephen Fischer-Galati who facilitated the com- researched the topic of the Nazi and Soviet occu- pletion of this project and encouraged the author pations of Poland’s Eastern Borderlands (1939- along the way. 47). Once again, the assistance of Aleksandra Also in March 2003, Fronda published Borecka and Dr. Michael Gelb proved invalu- Ejszyszki: Kulisy zajÊç w Ejszyszkach: Epilog sto- able. In the Summer of 2003, at the archives of sunków polsko-˝ydowskich na Kresach, 1944-1945: the Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA, Dr. Wspomnienia, dokumenty, publicystyka [Ejszyszki: Chodakiewicz finished researching the collec- The Background to the Events in Ejszyszki: An tion of the Polish underground press from 1939 Epilogue to Polish-Jewish Relations in the to 1949 and commenced a study of the docu- Eastern Borderlands, 1944-1945: Recollections, ments of the Polish National Committee in Paris Documents, Essays]. The two-volume work con- during the First World War and its aftermath. tains witness testimonies, NKVD records, and Many thanks to Zbyszek Staƒczyk and Dr. scholarly essays and punditry concerning the Maciej Siekierski of the Hoover Institution infamous Ejszyszki affair. The collection was archives as well as Dr. Wojciech Zalewski of the edited by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, who also Stanford libraries for their kind assistance in all provided an extensive, bi-lingual (English and our projects. Polish) introduction. A two-volume anthology of the Polish In October 2003, Leopolis Press published underground press, edited by Marek Jan Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism: The Chodakiewicz and Wojciech Jerzy Muszyƒski, Borderlands of Europe in the 19th and 20th will be published in 2004. The fruit of another Centuries. The contributors to this volume research project, a collection of documents con- include leading US Hispanicists, Alexandra cerning the massacre in Piƒsk in April 1919 will Wilhelmsen, Carolyn P. Boyd, Boyd Cathey, and also appear late next year. Based on primary Patric Foley, who focused mostly on the Carlist sources from American libraries and Polish and phenomenon of Catholic Traditionalism. On the post-Soviet archives, it is edited by Marek Jan Polish side, Dr. Chodakiewicz explored Poland’s Chodakiewicz and Mariusz Bechta. Some addi- reaction to the Civil War in Spain. And Dr. John tional documents, along with essays on related Radzi∏owski introduced the topic of a Polish- topics, are published in various Polish periodi- Spanish nexus. cals, including Glaukopis, a historical periodical In December 2003, Lexington Books is ready Dr. Chodakiewicz helped to create in Poland. to go to press with Dr. Chodakiewicz’s Between A monumental endeavor of the KC, the Nazis and Soviets: A Case Study of Occupation Polish-language version of Professor Policies in Poland, 1939-1947. It can be pre- Roszkowski’s Biographical Dictionary of East and ordered at www.lexingtonbooks.com Central Europe in the Twentieth Century is ready or for publication. The translation of biographical http://www.lexingtonbooks.com/Catalog/ entries into English continues. SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/ As for other KC projects, we are pleased to CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0739104845 announce that in January 2003 Leopolis Press published our May 2001 conference papers as In fact, all our English-language works are Poland’s Transformation: A Work in Progress (ed. available on-line at www.amazon.com or direct- by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz and John ly from the publishers at http://www.aulam Radzi∏owski). This is an eclectic collection of .org/leopress.htm and http://www.columbia papers by prominent authors concerning recent .edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/088033/0880335114 developments in Poland’s history since 1989. .HTML The topics include the negotiated abandonment Polish language works can also be ordered of Communism, foreign affairs, constitutional- at Szwede Slavic Books, 1629 Main St., Redwood

5 Nihil Novi

City, CA 94063 (650) 780-0966; www.ampolinstitute.org/miller_center/index.h www.szwedeslavicbooks.com tml and directly from Fronda at We hope to be able to upload the rest of the www.fronda.pl contents of both bulletins as well as to make the or http://ksiegarnia.fronda.pl/sklep.php current one available on line soon. Many thanks ?a=4&id=973 to Beata Paszyc and the Internet staff at the Last but not least, portions of Nihil Novi American Institute of Polish Culture for helping no. 1 and 2 have been posted at http:// with this project. Publications of the KoÊciuszko Chair Fall 2002-Fall 2003:

After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the “‘Barbarossa’ i potem: Wybór niemieckich Wake of World War II (Boulder, CO: East dokumentów policyjnych (maj 1941-kwiecieƒ European Monographs, 2003) 1942),” [“Barbarossa” and after: A selection of German police documents (May 1941-April Poland’s Transformation: A Work in Progress 1942)] Glaukopis vol. 1 (2003). (Charlottesville, VA: Leopolis Press and the KoÊciuszko Chair in Polish Studies at the Miller “Idziemy jak burza: Poznajmy swojà his- Center of Public Affairs, 2003) tori´,” [We’re going like a storm: Let us learn our history] Nowe Paƒstwo, no. 4 (April 2003). Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism: The Borderlands of Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries “Bula!” [On Fiji] Mi´dzynarodowy Przeglàd (Charlottesville, VA: Leopolis Press, 2003) Polityczny, no. 3 (2003): 211-218.

Ejszyszki: Kulisy zajÊç w Ejszyszkach: Epilog “˚ydowscy Niemcy w wojskach Hitlera,” stosunków polsko-˝ydowskich na Kresach, 1944- [Jewish Germans in Hitler’s armies] Arcana, no. 3 1945: Wspomnienia, dokumenty, publicystyka (51) (2003). [Ejszyszki: The Background to the Events in Ejszyszki: An Epilogue to Polish-Jewish “Papie˝ na ∏awie oskar˝onych,” [The Pope Relations in the Eastern Borderlands, 1944-1945: accussed] Fronda: Pismo poÊwi´cone 30 (2003): 318- Recollections, Documents, Essays] (Warszawa: 323. Fronda, 2002) “Jeszcze o Profesorze Ruszkowskim,” [More “K∏opoty z kuracjà szokowà,” [The Trouble on Prof. Ruszkowski] Wi´ê no. 11 (November with Shock Therapy] in Jedwabne: Spór histo- 2002): 164-165. ryków wokó∏ ksià˝ki Jana T. Grossa “Sàsiedzi” [Jedwabne: The quarrels of historians about Jan “Jedwabne – podsumowanie,” [Jedwabne: A T. Gross’s book Neighbors] (Warszawa: Fronda, Summary] Arcana, no. 6 (48) (2002): 69-85. 2002). “Sowiecka Hiszpania,” [Soviet Spain] “Ordinary Terror: Communist and Nazi Arcana, no. 4-5 (46-47) (2002): 281-85. Occupation Politics in Jedwabne, 1939-1949,” Glaukopis no. 1 (2003) also posted at “‘Dwie drogi, jeden cel’: Ukraiƒcy w bry- http://www.pacwashmetrodiv.org/events/jed- gadach mi´dzynarodowych Hitlera,” [‘Two wabne/chodakiewicz.text.htm roads, one aim’: Ukrainians in Hitler’s interna- tional brigades], Templum, no. 2/3 (2002): 102- “Nazistowskie si∏y policyjne: 109. Mikropoziom,” [Nazi police forces on the microlevel] Glaukopis no. 1 (2003). “Lewicowe rewelacje,” [Leftist revelations] Templum, no. 2/3 (2002): 120-122.

6 Fall 2003

“Wiwisekcja wybiórczej wra˝liwoÊci,” [An no. 4 (2003) (forthcoming October 2003). Autopsy of Selective Sensitivity] Templum, no. 2/3 (2002): 125-128. The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After “Propaganda prosto z mostu,” [In-your-face propaganda] Templum, no. 2/3 (2002): 128-130. “Polska dla Polaków!” Antologia podziemnej prasy narodowej pod niemieckà i sowieckà okupacjà, “Przytycki konflikt,” [The conflict in 1939-1949 [“Poland for the Poles!” An anthology Przytyk] Templum, no. 2/3 (2002): 62-64. of the underground nationalist press during the German and Soviet occupations, 1939-49] Soon forthcoming and in progress: (Fronda, forthcoming Spring 2004)

Between Nazis and Soviets: A Case Study of Egzekucja czy pogrom? Masakra w Piƒsku, 3-4 Occupation Policies in Poland, 1939-1947 (Lanham, kwietnia 1919: Dokumenty i wspomnienia [An exe- MD: Lexington Books, forthcoming December cution or a pogrom? The massacre in Piƒsk, 2003) April 3 and 4, 1919: Documents and Recollections] “Nacjonalizm wyobra˝ony,” [Nationalism imagined] Mi´dzynarodowy Przeglàd Polityczny,

Poles in the Gulag, by Janina Bogusz

7 Nihil Novi

A Speech by the President of the United States Cracow, Poland, June 1, 2003 (excerpts)

ing the peace and security of our alliance to the young democracies of Europe. You also struggled to become a full member of the Atlantic alliance, yet you have not come all this way — through occupations and tyranny and brave uprisings — only to be told that you must now choose between Europe and America. Poland is a good citizen of Europe, and Poland is a close friend of America — and there is no con- flict between the two. America owes our moral heritage of democ- racy and tolerance and freedom to Europe. We have sacrificed for those ideals together, in the great struggles of the past. In the Second World War, the forces of freedom came together to defeat Nazism. In the Cold War, our trans- Atlantic alliance opposed imperial communism. And today our alliance of freedom faces a new enemy, a lethal combination of terrorist groups, outlaw states seeking weapons of mass destruc- tion, and an ideology of power and domination President George W. Bush that targets the innocent and justifies any crime. For my country, the events of September the I’m honored to be in the city of Kraków, 11th were as decisive as the attack on Pearl where so many landmarks give witness to Harbor and the treachery of another September Poland’s history and Poland’s faith. in 1939. And the lesson of all those events is the From this castle, Polish kings ruled for cen- same: aggression and evil intent must not be turies in a tradition of tolerance. Below this hill ignored or appeased; they must be opposed lies the market square, where KoÊciuszko swore early and decisively. loyalty to the first democratic constitution of One of the main fronts in this war is right Europe. And at Wawel Cathedral in 1978, a here in Europe, where al-Qaida used the cities as Polish Cardinal began his journey to a conclave staging areas for their attacks. Europe’s capable in Rome, and entered history as Pope John Paul II police forces and intelligence services are play- — one of the greatest moral leaders of our time. ing essential roles in hunting the terrorists. And In all the tests and hardship Poland has Poland has led the effort to increase anti-terror known, the soul of the Polish people has always cooperation amongst central and eastern been strong. Mrs. Bush and I are pleased to make European nations. And America is grateful. our second visit to this beautiful country, and we Some challenges of terrorism, however, can- bring with us the friendship and the good wish- not be met with law enforcement alone. They es of the American people. must be met with direct military action. In the In Warsaw two years ago, I affirmed the battles of Afghanistan and Iraq, Polish forces commitment of my country to a united Europe, served with skill and honor. America will not bound to America by close ties of history, of forget that Poland rose to the moment. Again commerce and of friendship. I said that Europe you have lived out the words of the Polish must finally overturn the bitter legacy of Yalta motto: for your freedom and ours. and remove the false boundaries and spheres of In order to win the war on terror, our influence that divided this continent for too long. alliances must be strong. Poland and America We have acted on this commitment. Poland, are proud members of NATO, and NATO must the United States and our allies have agreed to be prepared to meet the challenges of our time. extend NATO eastward and southward, bring- The enemies of freedom have always preferred a

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divided alliance — because when Europe and be treated with dignity, because every person is America are united, no problem and no enemy known and loved by God. can stand against us. In time, this man’s vision and this man’s Within an hour’s journey of this castle lies a courage would bring fear to tyrants and freedom monument to the darkest impulses of man. to his beloved country, and liberation to half a Today, I saw Auschwitz, the sites of the continent. To this very hour, Pope John Paul II Holocaust and Polish martyrdom; a place where speaks for the dignity of every life and expresses evil found its willing servants and its innocent the highest aspirations of the culture we share. victims. History asks more than memory, Europe and America will always be joined by because hatred and aggression and murderous more than our interests. Ours is a union of ideals ambitions are still alive in the world. Having and convictions. We believe in human rights, seen the works of evil firsthand on this conti- and justice under law, and self-government, and nent, we must never lose the courage to oppose economic freedom tempered by compassion. it everywhere. We do not own these beliefs, but we have Through the years of the Second World War, carried them through the centuries. We will another legacy of the 20th century was unfold- advance them further, and we will defend them ing, here in this city of Kraków. A young semi- together. narian, Karol Wojty∏a, saw the swastika flag fly- Thank you for your hospitality. Thank you ing over the ramparts of Wawel Castle. He for your friendship. May God bless this great shared the suffering of his people and was put nation, and may God bless the Polish people. into forced labor. From this priest’s experience and faith came a vision: that every person must George W. Bush

Poles in the Gulag, by Janina Bogusz 9 Nihil Novi

After NATO Enlargement: What Next? (Excerpts from the speech by Dr. Zbigniew Brzeziƒski, December 16, 2002)

enlargement of NATO has created a wider zone of stability and security – security not only objectively but, very importantly, psychologi- cally – and it corresponds with the enlargement of the EU. More recently, arguments have been made that the enlargement of NATO dilutes its mili- tary cohesion and viability. But you have to look at the argument critically and ask yourself, would its military viability and cohesion be greater if it did not enlarge? Against whom would I be greater? What sort of a militant and closely cohesive NATO do we need and against whom right now? Without enlargement, can the new independent Central Europe be secure? And last but not least, would it be good for inter- national stability if the larger EU had a member- ship which consisted of two-thirds NATO mem- Dr. Zbigniew Brzeziƒski bers and one-third non-NATO members, in terms of territory? Would that be more stable? It is useful to step back for a minute and to In brief, we have to recognize that the reflect on the debates that have taken place in expansion of NATO – and paralleling it, the the United States over several years regarding expansion of the EU – reflects a very significant NATO enlargement. The principal argument transformation in the nature of the European throughout was that the enlargement of NATO order, which has evolved as a consequence of would stimulate a new conflict with Russia. A the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the number of very distinguished public figures in Soviet Union. In that setting, NATO has had to the United States in the international affairs change from primarily a military into primarily arena or in scholarship argued vigorously that a political alliance. That was inherent in the his- the enlargement of NATO was dangerous. One torical change that Europe was experiencing in even said it was the worst mistake made in the course of the last decade. In my view, it has American foreign policy since the founding of been a constructive and enduring but unfin- NATO. We now know that this is not so, that the ished response. Emboldening the Freedom Fighter (A Summary) Dr. John Lenczowski

Some claim that the collapse of the Soviet But why did Soviets and East Central Union occurred, first, because the US outspent Europeans demonstrate against the system? the Soviets on defense. Next, lowering oil and Why did the Communist parties give up their gas prices caused an increased hemorrhage of power? In other words, what emboldened the the USSR’s defense budget. The crisis was fur- freedom fighters? First, it was the Pope; second, ther compounded by internal weaknesses of the it was the election of President Ronald Reagan Communist system. Additionally, there was and his public diplomacy. massive unrest by the people and the national The central fact of life in the Soviet Union minorities. Last but not least, the Communist was the regime’s fear of its own people. The mes- party lost internal discipline. sage of the party was “resistance is futile.” They

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all repeated the prop- ened popular resistance. It neatly complemented aganda lies. Pope John Paul II’s message: “Be not afraid.” However, in reality, However, the Communist societies were in the 1980s the atomized. No one trusted anyone else. regime entered the Alexandr Solzhenitsyn stressed the importance final and crucial of the battle between truth and falsehood. stage of the crisis of “Fight the lie!”: one day at a time as individuals its own legitimacy. and society. Putatively, the To fight the lie, one needed ammunition. It Communist party was most readily provided by Voice of America was invincible. and Radio Free Europe/Voice of Liberty; for Marxist determinism many it served as a surrogate free national dictated “scientifical- radio. At the same time, the Catholic Church John Lenczowski ly” the inevitability remained an island of autonomy, in Poland in of Communism. And particular. It waged spiritual warfare against then the initial glitch occurred. Ronald Reagan the Communists. ordered the invasion of Grenada which for the The dissident movement in Poland was the first time in history toppled a fully consolidated avant-garde of the resistance. Poland’s Communist regime. “Solidarity” was the first to show the way to But the real strength in the battle against the “people’s movements.” The Polish way to struggle Evil Empire was not material; it was moral. was emulated throughout the Soviet Bloc: from Reagan’s launching of public diplomacy embold- the Baltics to Tajikistan. And the rest is history.

Ronald Reagan: Security, Prosperity, Freedom!

Initiative (NAI) at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC, and the Adam Smith Research Center, Warsaw, Poland. The organiz- ers invited individuals from President Reagan’s inner circle and conservative pundits from Poland to reflect upon the phenomenon of his presidency and his legacy for Europe. The con- ference was hosted by Radek Sikorski, executive director of the NAI, and Andrzej Kondratowicz of ASRC. The keynote address was given by for- mer Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. The President of the National Bank of Poland, Leszek Balcerowicz, opened the session, invoking President Reagan, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Freedman, and others. “Victory Over the Evil Empire” was the focus of the first part of the conference. John Lenczowski, Soviet affairs advisor and current Ronald Reagan director of the Institute of World Politics, recalled the political background of the late 1970s. He On July 1, 2003, over 200 persons attended reminded the audience about the steady expan- the “Ronald Reagan – Legacy for Europe” con- sion of Communism throughout the world and ference at the Sheraton Hotel in Warsaw. The the general malaise of American politics. Carter’s conference was organized by the New Atlantic presidency was a series of concessions, which

11 Nihil Novi

only served to feed the insolence of the Evil the Lesson for Europe?” The panelists for this Empire. US foreign policy was heavily on the portion of the conference were James Glassman, defensive. Domestic policy suffered likewise from member of the AEI and columnist for the poor management. Afterward, US Ambassador to Washington Post, and Robert Gwiazdowski, Poland, Christopher R. Hill, spoke about his work director of the Tax Commission at the Adam as a diplomat in Poland during the 1980s and the Smith Research Center. atmosphere of those times. And it was a different James Glassman emphasized that when world. He recalled never-ending lines, special President Reagan took office, the United States stores for the diplomatic corps, butcher’s meat was facing its greatest crisis since the Great wrapped in The People’s Tribune and countless Depression. Taxes were on the rise, the US was one-person, illegal Communist-style “foreign drowning in regulations, spending on social exchange bankers.” programs was growing, government spending Former Prime Minister of Estonia Mart Laar, was increasing, and the economy was burdened who introduced a poll tax in his country, was the by unemployment and inflation. Ronald only speaker who actually lived inside the Evil Reagan faced a difficult challenge. And met it. Empire, in the Soviet satellite of Estonia, during A new approach to economic matters began to the 1980s. He recounted how in the early 1980s, dominate while the effects of lowered taxes and upon the election of Ronald Reagan, an officer of deregulation kicked in. Mr. Glassman conclud- the Red Army announced to the recruits that a ed that these principles could serve as an dangerous madman had taken leadership of the invaluable guideline for Poland. It is especially United States. This was a sign that the Soviets important to remember that a free market is were starting to get nervous. For the first time in much better than socialism at sustaining eco- recent memory, someone had stood up to them. nomic development. Then, editor-in-chief Piotr Wierzbicki of cen- Afterward, Robert Gwiazdowski concluded ter right Gazeta Polska spoke briefly about the sit- that while the lessons learned from the Reagan uation in Poland before the Reagan presidency presidency are certainly relevant to Poland, it is and during martial law (1981-1983). Wierzbicki necessary to go even further in Poland’s case, as mentioned that contrary to general opinion, the in the matter of personal income taxes, for exam- opposition at that time was demanding only cos- ple. Unfortunately, according to Gwiazdowski, metic changes of the Communist system. Their only 2% of Poles would understand the debates main demand was to share power with the of the conference. regime within its socialist framework. Only a A debate followed the presentations. The handful of conservative dissidents, including the leading libertarian pundit Janusz Korwin-Mikke late Stefan Kisielewski and Miros∏aw Dzielski, commented on Mr. Gwiazdowski’s discussion of supported an outright free market. the “optimal system of taxation generating the Finally, Peter Wallison, an advisor to most revenue.” He stressed that from the conser- President Reagan and author of Ronald Reagan: vative and libertarian economic point of view the The Power of Conviction and the Success of His objective is not for the budget to have the most Presidency, identified two main features of the money but for the taxpayers to have the most Reagan presidency: the President’s unwavering money. Mr. Gwiazdowski agreed and added beliefs and his strategy of putting them into that he used the word “optimal” to mean that the action. It was Reagan who first dared to call evil government’s expenses on military, law enforce- by name against the advice of many of his advi- ment, judicial, and necessary administrative sors. Moreover, the same applied to his domestic matters are optimally covered. policy. Even today, some say that President Next, the conservative journalist Stanis∏aw Reagan was a puppet in the hands of his advisors. Michalkiewicz pointed to one very important Yet, in accordance with the prevailing economic issue, namely that Ronald Reagan was a free- doctrine, President Reagan’s advisors (i.e., James dom fighter and that in fighting for freedom, he Baker) had actually begged him to raise taxes in fought against the “Evil Empire.” This struggle the depressed economy. Fortunately, Reagan came out of his love of freedom, not out of some remained resolute. In this as in many other mat- enmity towards the Soviet Union as such, all ters, it was President Reagan who called the shots. the more so since this struggle was also waged And he swam against the current. on an economic level at home in the United The second portion of the conference States. Then and now, in Paris, for instance, addressed the issue of “20-Year Boom – What is where Michalkiewicz recently spent some time,

12 Fall 2003

there are Marxists leading a very comfortable The last portion of the conference was devot- life. In response, Mr. Glassman agreed on this ed to the media and the politics of success. The very important point, that freedom is not given panelists were Mark Burson from the Ronald once and for all but is actually continuously Reagan Presidential Library, Jaros∏aw Sellin threatened on various levels, both economically from Poland’s Committee for Radio and TV, and and politically. Steven Hayward, publicist and member of FK Subsequent voices from the audience Weyerhaeuser. Sellin spoke about the situation addressed how supporters of the Adam Smith of the media in Poland after 1989. The American Research Center can aid in propagating and guests discussed the role of the media in implementing Reaganomics in Polish econom- Reagan’s success. When Reagan was taking ic policy and how they can support the office, the slogan “equality of the people” was reforms in Poland. especially popular. Reagan, on the other hand, The highlight of the conference was the emphasized freedom. But the US media speech by former Speaker of the US House of opposed the President and often misquoted him. Representatives, architect of the “Contract with By criticising him, they nonetheless spread his America,” Newt Gingrich. He pointed to three message. Thus, his easily understood, straight- characteristics of Ronald Reagan and his politics forward, and powerful statements reached every – his perseverance, pragmatism and joyous opti- American and caused Reagan’s policies to gain mism. Perseverance accompanied Ronald support. Equally important were President Reagan for many years; indeed, the defeat of the Reagan’s experience and sense of humor, which Republicans in the American political arena had allowed him to deal with difficult situations and been talked about since the 1960s. Setback fol- helped him gain popular opinion. Mr. Hayward lowed setback and socialism seemed tri- noted two other important things. First, he umphant. Promulgating free market slogans, observed that Ronald Reagan never attacked fiscal responsibility, and tough foreign policy people in his speeches, and second, that he was seemingly a guarantee of electoral defeat, always repeated simple messages. Sometimes, yet Reagan persevered and won. especially during the campaigns, these methods Once his goal was reached, pragmatism was seemed irritating. However, ultimately, they necessary. Congress was not controlled by the proved effective, especially since Reagan never Republicans, so Reagan had to solicit, some- hid his true agenda. Of course, he did not times late into the night, support from always discuss everything in great detail, but his Democrats, who had control of both the House belief in the proposed solutions was so apparent and the Senate. This demanded a great deal of that he was not afraid to speak openly about dif- effort, accentuated by the fact that he often had ficult and controversial issues. to solicit support for his policies from One of the Polish participants, Robert Republicans as well. But his joyous optimism, Gwiazdowski, had complained about the lack of confidence in his ultimate success and sense of understanding of the conservative message purpose carried him through it. among Poland’s voters. The American panelists Gingrich told many anecdotes from the peri- said that they did not consider this the fault of the od of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. During his audience, but rather that of the speakers, who electoral campaign, President Reagan quipped: must use clear language to convey their inten- Can you claim that during the previous presi- tions. The American people were rather easy to dency your situation has improved? Democrats persuade, according to Steven Hayward. demand of us to be specific. OK. Let me fulfill Regretfully, however, President Ronald Reagan their wish. A recession occurs when your neigh- was underappreciated and misunderstood by the bor loses his job. A depression occurs when you media; this continues to be so to this very day. are unemployed. But the recovery will take place Following the official part, the participants when Carter becomes unemployed! According enjoyed a reception with the participation of to Newt Gingrich, most of the elite were always Warsaw’s Mayor, Lech Kaczyƒski, who co-spon- opposed to Reagan, in particular the universities sored the conference. which were stifled by socialist thinking. What did Reagan do? He ignored them. He appealed Wojciech Popiela directly to the American people and underscored Mr. Popiela is a libertarian and conservative several important matters: security, prosperity, activist and a former deputy mayor of Tarnów. and their guarantor – freedom. (translated and edited by TD)

13 Nihil Novi

The Polish-Canadian Technical and Engineering Tradition by Mark W´gierski

The upcoming year 2004 is very important for Alejski was involved in the design and supervision the Polish-Canadian community – it marks the 60th of construction at Robarts Library at the University Anniversary of the establishment of the of Toronto, Roy Thomson Hall, and many Toronto Canadian-Polish Congress (the community’s main high-rises. Much of the construction and electronics umbrella organization) (1944); and the 140th for the CN Tower were designed and installed Anniversary of the arrival of the first large group of under the supervision of Eugeniusz Danowski. Polish settlers in Canada (in Renfrew County, near Architect and builder Tadeusz Jeruzalski has been Ottawa, Ontario, in 1864). involved in many construction projects in Montreal Since World War II, highly-skilled Polish and Toronto. W∏adys∏aw Marcinkowski (“Jaxa”) immigrants and their descendants have made a was involved in the construction of numerous very significant contribution to the intellectual buildings in Montreal. Dr. Teodor Blachut was and physical development of Canada, out of pro- famous for his then-pioneering techniques of mak- portion to their overall numbers. In fact, it is possi- ing maps based on satellite photography. Bohdan ble to see a specific Polish-Canadian tradition of Ejbich worked for many years at General Electric, technical, engineering, architectural and scholarly designing electrical transformers, and has also writ- achievement. ten several books about the heroic World War II Prior to 1939, Polish immigration, ongoing experiences of the Polish air force squadrons in since the 1850s, had largely consisted of peasants Britain that fought alongside the R.A.F. Wojciech and laborers. Nevertheless, one should mention Krajewski is known for his fine work on the design two prominent nineteenth-century engineers, Sir and casting of ironworks for several coal-generating Casimir Gzowski and Aleksander Edward stations of Ontario Hydro and has also written Kierzkowski, as well as the eighteenth-century about various wartime tragedies in German- and cartographer Charles Blaskowitz, a Loyalist Soviet-occupied Poland. Dr. Andrzej Garlicki, a refugee from America. prominent research engineer, received the Order of During World War II, about a thousand Polish Canada. Dr. Zdzis∏aw Przygoda, a member of the technicians and engineers came to Canada, partly Polish Underground, and a survivor of the Dachau from Britain and partly from occupied Europe, by a concentration camp, enjoyed a distinguished career variety of routes, to help with the war effort. in Ontario; he was eventually made an associate of Immigration expanded in the 1950s, as thousands the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario more technical persons and scholars came to (APEO) committee verifying the qualifications of Canada, mostly from Britain. (After fighting along- engineers from abroad. Dr. Jerzy Dobrowolski side the Western Allies, they had refused to return designed the anti-forgery hologram on the $50 to a truncated Poland ruled by Stalin’s henchmen.) Canadian bill. Stefan Szalwiƒski became the This generation operated according to rigorous, President of the engineering firm Yolles Associates Continental European traditions of design. Their and Tobias Associates – and designed numerous approach was new to Canadians, who were accus- government, academic, commercial, and hospital tomed to more provincial, British-derived techno- buildings – both in Canada and abroad. Stanis∏aw logical models. Or∏owski, as the Chief Architect working for the Among these persons was Antoni Piechota, Ontario education system, directed the building of who played a large role in the construction of the twenty-two Colleges of Applied Arts and country’s military radar-antenna system. W. Technology, the largest project of its kind in Czerwiƒski significantly improved the Mosquito, Canada. Alex Jablonski worked in a senior capacity Canada’s WW II-era long-range fighter-bomber. W. for Atomic Energy Canada. The oldest member of J. Jakimiuk, who eventually became Chief of the Association (in 1991) was Piotr JaÊkiewicz, then Engineering at DeHavilland, designed with 94. He remembered, for example, that in Canada’s Stepniewski the famous Chipmunk and Beaver air- Aircraft Research Bureau, there originally worked craft. During the 1950s, many Polish technicians 42 Poles... and two English-Canadians. Dr. B. and designers (including Czerwiƒski, Jakimiuk, Z. Wiechula, an oil-processing expert, is one of only S. Cyma, Dr. Eryk Kosko, and J. ¸ukasiewicz) and two members in Canada of the Polish Special even test pilots (Janusz ˚urakowski) were involved Commandos, who during World War II carried with the grand project of the Avro Arrow. instructions from the Polish Government-in-Exile in DeHavilland continued to hire significant numbers London to the Underground in German-occupied of Poles into the 1980s. Poland. B. D. E. Pra˝mowski, who served in the W∏adys∏aw Wyszkowski was responsible for Polish Underground, is an expert in environmental the first, difficult phase of the construction of the technologies and has also written an emotionally- Bloor-Yonge subway system in Toronto. Ludwik searing book based on his wartime experiences.

14 Fall 2003

The Polish tradition of technical excellence had Because of the post-World War II arrangements its ultimate origins in the pre-World War I Partition in East-Central Europe, Canada has received the period, when many Poles, frustrated under the rule benefit of this outstanding technical skill and of Imperial Germany and Imperial Russia and dis- expertise. The generations born in Canada (many of illusioned by the continued immateriality of Polish whom have taken up technical professions), as well statehood, embraced the concreteness of the exact as the large number of those with technical training sciences. The long-awaited rebirth of an independ- arriving from Poland, especially in the 1980s, look ent Polish state after World War I gave this tradi- forward to replicating the success of the older gen- tion a fully national focus. Between the world wars, eration and continuing this Polish-Canadian tradi- Poland existed as a fully independent state for the tion of technical excellence and achievement. first time in 123 years. The desire to build a modern state and the necessity for rapid industrial advance- Mark W´gierski is a Toronto-based writer and ment fueled the development of technical special- historical researcher, published in Alberta Report, ization and professional excellence. One of the American Outlook,Arcana (Cracow), Calgary attestations to this excellence was the fact that Herald, Najwy˝szy Czas!, Telos, and The World & I, much of the clandestine work of decoding ULTRA among others. His article about Canada was (the German Army coding system) was done before reprinted in Annual Editions: World Politics, 1998- the onset of the war by Polish mathematicians. 99 (Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 1998). Motivations for Popular Support of EU Accession in Poland since 1989: The Role of National Pride as an Assimilative Force Adam Józef Su∏kowski

Introduction tion with other countries under the auspices of EU institutions. One would naturally suspect that Polish public opinion in favor of EU membership during the past Poles support EU membership despite popu- decade would be motivated by perceived econom- lar perceptions that accession will be economi- ic benefits resulting from accession. An objective cally painful external observer may also imagine that Poles have supported EU accession because closer integration Approximately 55% of Poles in separate recent with the West would improve their strategic posi- studies stated that they would vote in favor of tion vis-a-vis security threats from the East. immediate EU membership. 62% would vote in However, a close examination of Polish public favor of membership once their economy opinion from the past decade reveals that neither of improves. 30% would vote against immediate these motivations completely explains Poles’ sup- accession. While this majority represents a deterio- port for their country’s membership in the EU. The ration in popular support from a decade ago, which majority of Poles are skeptical of the economic con- hovered around 80%, Poles are, relative to the pop- sequences of EU accession, and Poles are increas- ulations of other Central and Eastern European ingly confident that membership in NATO guaran- (CEE) countries, supportive of EU membership. tees their country’s independence and security. Yet Poles are among the least optimistic CEE An additional explanation for support of EU populations with regard to the economic impact of membership among Poles is a sense of national and EU membership. Only 27% of Poles agreed with cultural identity that is rooted in the same civiliza- the statement that immediate EU accession “would tion as Western Europe. This hypothesis is sup- speed up improvement and modernization” of ported by the fact that the opponents to EU mem- their economy, compared to 34% of Czechs, 37% of bership are definitely motivated by cultural con- Hungarians, and 40% of Slovakians. cerns (among them, the conviction that materialism Poles are also inclined to see their potential and secularism will destroy Poland’s distinct membership in the EU as primarily benefiting national identity). Ironically, after a century during their western neighbors; 54% of Poles would agree which nationalism led to catastrophic conflict, with the statement that “the EU would primarily national pride in a cultural identity may to some benefit,” from their country’s membership, com- extent be motivating popular support for integra- pared to 36% of Czechs, 23% of Hungarians, and

15 Nihil Novi

30% of Slovakians. Independence, and the Second World War, and the Perhaps most importantly, only 6% of Poles pivotal role of the Solidarity movement are cited as saw their country as being the primary beneficiary examples of Polish sacrifice in the service of democ- of its potential EU membership, as compared with racy and free enterprise. Contributions such as 22% of Slovakians, 13% of Czechs, 24% of Copernicus’ proposition of a heliocentric planetary Hungarians, and 29% of Lithuanians. system, the discoveries of Marie Curie, and the first Clearly, regardless of the validity of their per- European constitution are cited for the notion that, ceptions, a majority of Poles continues to support beyond its role as a bulwark and martyr in defense EU membership despite the fact that only a minor- of political and economic freedom, Poland’s identity ity believes economic benefits will follow. is firmly rooted in Western Civilization’s legacy. In the 1990’s, before extreme nationalists became Poland’s desire for EU membership as a secu- Euroskeptics, the popular consensus in support of rity guarantee Poland reasserting its identity as a European state had the additionally galvanizing effect of uniting The surge of Polish popular support for EU Poles regardless of class, party affiliation, level of and NATO membership in the early 1990’s could education, or occupation. have been interpreted as part of a general thrust to Polish leaders have repeatedly indicated that integrate with western political and security struc- EU entry is associated in their minds with asserting tures. However, since the mid-1990’s, the desire for a place in Western Civilization that has wrongfully security against perceived threats from the east is been denied. Whether these statements are inter- not a convincing explanation for why a majority of preted as the musings of opinion-leaders, or rather Poles support EU membership. This is because (1) words chosen to resonate with pre-existing popular the population generally can distinguish the func- opinion, they are indicative of Polish national iden- tions of the EU and NATO, and (2) the population tity as it relates to Europe. According to former increasingly trusts NATO as a guarantor of Polish Foreign Minister W∏adys∏aw Bartoszewski, Poland’s independence and security. speaking in July 1995, “Psychologically, the Between 1999 and 2000 alone, the percentage of Western orientation is so deeply rooted in Poland Poles who saw NATO membership as a guarantor that the Germans often do not understand that, of their nation’s independence and security rose since the 10th or 11th century, the Poles have con- from 41% to 56%. The percentage of Poles who saw tinuously oriented themselves increasingly toward their nation’s membership in NATO as a new form the West. The people’s psychological situation has of submission to a foreign power shrunk from 42% not changed in 50 or 60 years.” to 29%. The reverse is true in some other CEE Foreign Minister Bartoszewski elaborated countries. Generally, Poles now feel secure in the upon this argument for Polish integration into the physical integrity of their current borders; between EU based on political and cultural grounds on 1999 and 2000, the percentage of Poles with a another occasion: “For us the road is clear. That is, favorable outlook on their peace and security grew I say to those like myself, there is a single Polish from 55% to 60%. foreign policy in the West and in the East, the basis Therefore, unmet security concerns do not of which is to think about ourselves as a future appear to explain Polish popular support for EU member of the alliance of democratic states only on membership. account of a certain system of our thinking, a cul- tural and civilizational option, and that is why we Polish cultural identity: an assimilative force? want to enter into an agreement with the best insurance in the European market.” EU membership undoubtedly holds tremen- In a June 1995 interview, Polish Prime Minister dous symbolic value for both Polish leaders and the Józef Oleksy insisted that EU membership was Polish population. more than an issue defined in terms of economic It is important to clarify precisely how the cul- self-interest: tural identity of Poland relates to the issue of inte- gration. One could characterize Poland’s desire to Poland does not see the EU as a foreign insti- assert an identity within the EU as driven by a mod- tution from which it would merely seek financial erate form of nationalism in that it is fueled by a assistance. Let us be clear: We have chosen Europe deeply-rooted, shared, emotional sense of history as a historical option for Poland. This is the reason harkening back to previously grand eras of the we are ready to speed up the process of compli- nation’s past. Poles cite such events as Sobieski’s lib- ance with membership criteria. We are not simply eration of Vienna from the Ottoman Turks in 1683 after financial assistance. We embrace all of the and Pilsudski’s victory over the Red Army in 1920 as democratic values embodied by the EU. evidence of their role as an antemuralis Christianitatis. In 1992, Polish Foreign Minister Krzysztof Further, Polish contributions to the American War of Skubiszewski argued along a similar vein: “In mov-

16 Fall 2003

ing closer to the Community, Poland is not just equally; 29% pointed to the EU countries and only seeking material advantages. It is profoundly 14% pointed to Poland. aware of its cultural affinity with Western Europe – is the Pope not Polish? – it wishes to anchor itself Conclusion once and for all to the group of nations to which it is bound by so many historical and human ties.” Among the three motivations that would Over the past decade, Polish public opinion explain Polish popular support for EU membership has reflected the rhetoric of the nation’s leaders. As – economic, strategic, and political/cultural, early as 1989, 84% of Poles supported increased cul- polling data indicates that political/cultural tural ties with the European Community, substan- motives offer the best explanation. Most persua- tially more than the 63% who welcomed coopera- sively, the majority in Poland continues to see EU tion in the area of defense. membership as detrimental to its own economic The passage below is one author’s summary of self-interest, even as the majority in Poland contin- the role of political and cultural concerns among ues to support EU membership. While concerns Poles during the past decade. Note that the Polish over the independence and territorial integrity of popular perception of EU accession as creating eco- Poland could have explained this paradox during nomic hardship has remained consistent – com- the early 1990s, Poles have grown increasingly con- pare the data listed below with the 1999-2001 data fident with regard to their national security since cited previously: Poland’s entry into NATO in 1999. Undoubtedly, certain segments of the Polish Why do people say “yes” to the West-oriented population such as entrepreneurs and urban pro- policies? It seems that Poles would first of all fessionals see their own economic interests served present political arguments. Asked [by an August by their country’s integration with the EU, but that 1995 Demoskop poll] whether full integration of does not explain why a majority of the Polish pop- Poland into the EU would in any way affect their ulation would, for a decade, continue to support incomes, 54% of the respondents gave a negative the EU accession process. Based on public opinion answer. Also, according to most respondents, data and the rhetoric of leaders who partly chose entry into the EU would not have any [positive] their words to resonate with the population, it effect on their housing conditions: 71% gave a appears that a powerful desire to define and negative answer to this question (merely 17% are cement a national identity plays a significant role in optimistic here). As far as possibilities of getting a popular support for EU accession. The Polish case more attractive job are concerned pessimists pre- illustrates a potentially positive role for mild forms vail here as well (48%). of nationalism. Rather than exclusively playing the negative, divisive role it has frequently assumed, Demoskop also asked the respondents which national aspirations to reaffirm a political and cul- partner gets greater benefits from the relations tural identity under certain circumstances may between Poland and the EU. According to 34% of play a unifying role by motivating states to assimi- the respondents, both sides benefit from them late into organizations based on shared values. Notes & Quotes

During a Mass to celebrate Poland’s nomic problems in Poland. Some interpreted Independence Day on November 11, 2003, the his statement as declaring Communism a sin. Archbishop of Gdaƒsk Tadeusz Goc∏owski Polish Press Agency, 11 November 2002 preached that “people who claim that things were better before 1989 should confess that as “For retired Gen. Slowomir [sic S∏awomir] a sin. We cannot compare the current difficul- Petelicki, a big problem [in the Polish army] is ties, which are indeed real, with the ideals of senior officers brought up under the Soviet freedom, of the sovereignty of the nation, for system and ‘trained to wait for orders, not to which many generations of Poles died.” The be creative.’ ‘The Russians ... did not want to Archbishop reacted to many complaints have good brains in command positions,’ he prompted by high unemployment and eco- said. ‘The future of our armed forces is in the

17 Nihil Novi

younger generation, who have studied abroad A priceless collection of antique sculptures in the West.’” went on exhibit in Lwów in 2002. They were Paul Ames, “Poland’s Airborn Cavalry Hope to originally located at the garden of the Count Point the Way for New NATO Members,” Lanckoroƒski’s family chateau of Stary Associated Press, Rozdó∏. Following the invasion of Poland in 11 November 2002 1939, and the incorporation of that part of the Polish state into the USSR (in 1939 and again The Institute of National Remembrance held a in 1944), the Soviet “experts” judged the sculp- seminar to review the case of the judicial mur- tures to be clay copies made in the 18th centu- der (Justizmord) of 35 Polish postmen who ry. Consequently, they were dumped into resisted the Nazis on September 1, 1939, at garbage but, luckily, never carted away from their post office in Gdaƒsk/Danzig. After a the estate. In reality, the sculptures date from sham trial that lasted a few hours, they were classical Greece. They were brought to the secretly executed on October 5, 1939. estate following the 1884 expedition of Count Following the Allied victory, the presiding Karol Lanckoroƒski to Asia Minor. The expe- judges in that case were perfunctorily “de- dition discovered and illegally brought back Nazified” and enjoyed illustrious careers in to the Galician estate ten priceless antique West Germany’s judiciary. Their story was sculptures. To conceal their origin and to pro- finally revealed by Dr. Dieter Schenk, a tect them from the elements, the Count had German prosecutor. them covered with a thin layer of clay. The Jan Ordyƒski, “To by∏ mord sàdowy,” truth was discovered through sheer accident Rzeczpospolita, 28 November 2002 by the Director of the Lviv Art Gallery, Boris Voznitsky. The scholar approached the garbage dump and scratched the clay off of a A team from the Institute of National sculpture and discovered marble underneath. Remembrance in Warsaw discovered a mass Jan Boƒcza-Szab∏owski, “Tajemnica grave in Melnyky near Shatsk in Ukraine. The Lanckoroƒskich,” Rzeczpospolita, burial site contains the bodies of 18 commis- 12 December 2002 sioned Polish officers summarily executed by the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of According to the census figures published in Poland in September 1939. December 2002, there were 147,900 Poles liv- “Polish War Crime Investigators Discover High- ing in Ukraine. In 1989, 218,000 were regis- Ranking Officers’ Mass Grave in Ukraine,” BBC tered as of Polish background. However, Monitoring Service, 8 November 2002 Polonian organizations in Ukraine claim that there are over 2 million people of Polish origin In November 2002 in Moscow, the Third there. Congress of Poles in the Russian Federation “Polacy wch∏oni´ci,” Nasz Dziennik, appealed to President Vladimir Putin to reha- 8 January 2003 bilitate fully all Polish victims of Communism. The delegates reminded the On November 12, 2002, Charles Chotkowski President that the “Poles were the first victims was decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the of ethnic purges” which commenced in Order of Merit at the Polish Consulate in New August 1937 in the USSR. After the Poles, “the York City. Chotkowski was recognized for his terror extended to the Koreans, Germans, work on the Holocaust Documentation Latvians, Lithuanians, Greeks, and the Committee of the Polish American Congress nations of Northern Caucasus.” Between and the Holocaust Studies Committee of the August 1937 and October 1938, the so-called KoÊciuszko Foundation. “Polish operation” of the NKVD led to the Patti Woods, “Fairfield Man Honored by Polish slaughter of 30% to 90% ethnic Poles, depend- Government,” Connecticut Post (Bridgeport), ing on the region. Halina Subotowicz- 15 December 2002 Romanowa was elected the chair of the Congress and entrusted with the task of fight- On December 11, 2002, Poland’s erstwhile ing for Polish national autonomy in the Foreign Minister W∏adys∏aw Bartoszewski Russian Federation, where an estimated was honored at the US Holocaust Museum 300,000 ethnic Poles reside. in Washington, DC, at a ceremony to com- “Czas na zadoÊçuczynienie,” Nasz Dziennik, memorate the 60th anniversary of the found- 2 December 2002 ing of the clandestine Council to Aid Jews

18 Fall 2003

(˚egota). Republic, Denmark, Spain, Italy, and Great Bartoszewski is Britain in “United We Stand,” The Wall Street also a Righteous Journal, 30 January 2003 Gentile recog- nized by Yad French President Jacques Chirac chastised Vashem. Poland and other ECE countries for their sup- Nora Boustany, port of the US during the war in Iraq. The “Horrors of French media referred to Poland as Auschwitz “America’s Trojan horse in Europe.” The Forged a Life of German press upped the ante, dubbing Struggle,” The Poland as America’s “Trojan donkey.” Washington Post, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer 13 December Foreign Minister gaily adopted the slur. 2002. W∏adys∏aw Bartoszewski Rzeczpospolita, 19 February 2003; Andrew Purvis, “New Europe, Old Economy,” Time Magazine On December 27, 2002, the Poles selected US- (Europe), 2 June 2003 at made Lockheed-Martin F16 fighter for their http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/ air force. The French Mirage and the British- printout/0,13155,901030602-454455,00.html Swedish Grippen fighters were thus rejected. In April 2003 Poland decided to order 48 F-16 “The list of countries under the French whip fighters at a price of $7.5 billion. The first 26 is ironic: Poland, Hungary, The Czech planes are scheduled to arrive in 2006. Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Danuta Walewska, “F-16 kupiony,”Rzeczpospolita, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria. 19 April 2003 All these countries were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain during the Age of “Poland is the best friend of the United States. Communism. They were unlucky enough to We have been cooperating together like equal be occupied by the Soviet Red Army in the partners.” closing months of WWII, and thus lived in President George W. Bush enforced slavery for a half-a-century. But Krzysztof Darewicz, “Najlepszy przyjaciel geography was destiny. France was occupied Ameryki,” Rzeczpospolita, 15 January 2003 by American, British, Canadian and other British Empire troops, and was thus saved “The real bond between the U.S. and Europe is from such a fate by their English-speaking the values we share: democracy, individual liberators. It is worth recalling that while freedom, human rights and the Rule of Law. French soldiers were throwing down their These values crossed the Atlantic with those rifles in 1940 as the Germans advanced, the who sailed from Europe to help create the flower of Polish manhood charged into the United States of America. Today they are invading Nazi tanks on horseback in the last under greater threat than ever. The attacks of and most gallant cavalry charge in history. Of September 11th showed just how far terror- course, they were killed to the last man. ists-the enemies of our common values are While the Poles were dying with their boots prepared to go to destroy them. Those out- on, the French were living on their knee-pads rages were an attack on all of us. In standing (during which, they cheerfully ferreted out firm in defense of these principles, the govern- and shipped their French Jews off to the ments and people of the US and Europe have German death camps). How dare the French amply demonstrated the strength of their con- attempt to blackmail the Poles — of all peo- victions. Today more than ever, the transat- ples. (And the Czechs and Slovaks whom lantic bond is a guarantee of our freedom. We they helped to sell out at Munich.)” in Europe have a relationship with the US Tony Blankely, “France Blackmails Poland,” The which has stood the test of time. Thanks in Washington Times, 19 February 2003. large part to American bravery, generosity and farsightedness, Europe was set free from “We are especially grateful for the direct mili- the two forms of tyranny that devastated our tary involvement of the forces of Great Britain continent in the 20th century: Nazism and and Australia and Poland and so many other Communism. Our strength lies in unity.” countries.” Defense Secretary Donald From a declaration of eight pro-US European Rumsfeld nations, including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Associated Press, 24 March 2003

19 Nihil Novi

one. ‘Are you crazy?’ he asked. After all, we “Poland does not deserve to be blamed for had no money. That was my first holidays having divided Europe; it deserves applause: ever without the Christmas tree.” bravo Poland!” Secretary of State Colin Powell “Getto. ¸atwo wyjÊç, ale jak prze˝yç? Z “Powell chwali Polaków,” Rzeczpospolita, Romanem Polaƒskim o krakowskim getcie roz- 19 May 2003 mawia Gra˝yna Lubiƒska,” Gazeta Wyborcza, 14 March 2003 Thanks to the assistance of the Russian author- ities, Polish art historians have identified sev- “Seeing the film, and reading the reviews in eral pieces of art looted by Red Army soldiers the American press, I was struck – as I was at from Poland during the Second World War. the time I met Szpilman – by how differently The Russian government posted some of the the Second World War is remembered by missing items on-line at www.lostart.ru. The those who survived it and by those who Polish Ministry of Culture intends to file know it from books. Szpilman, like Polanski claims for these and other missing pieces of himself, did not mythologize his experiences. art. There are no hero or enemy nations in his Tomasz Staƒczyk, “Rosja ujawnia trofea memoir or in Polanski’s film. Szpilman wojenne,” Rzeczpospolita, 26 March 2003 encountered brave Jewish resistance fighters and corrupt Jewish ghetto policemen, coura- UNESCO has mentioned three documentary geous Poles who risked their lives to hide collections from Poland on its “World’s him and thieving Poles who cheated him out memory” list. They include De of his meager rations. How different, by con- Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium by trast, are modern American perceptions of a Copernicus, the musical notes of Chopin, war that few of us remember. On the whole, and the Emmanuel Ringelblum under- we prefer our victims to be heroes. Yet ground archive from the Warsaw ghetto. The Szpilman was not a hero, only a survivor Poles would also like to see included the text who never claimed to be anything else. On of the Confederation of Warsaw (1573), the whole, we like to make easy, sweeping which guaranteed religious freedom, and the generalizations about our historical enemies, Twenty-One Demands of Solidarity (1980). in a way that makes us feel morally superior: “Historia zapisana na dykcie,” Rzeczpospolita, Daniel Goldhagen’s book “Hitler’s Willing 6 May 2003 Executioners” became a bestseller in America, in part, because he blamed the Holocaust on On March 26, 2003, a techy whiz team from the German national character. Yet Szpilman’s the University of Warsaw won the 27th life story tells the opposite story: that the International Academic World Champion- potential for tremendous evil, and tremendous ships in Team Programming in Beverly Hills, good, lurks within every nation.” California. Tomasz Czajka, Krzysztof Onak, Anne Appelbaum, “War Without Myth,” The and Andrzej Gàsiennica-Samek solved nine Washington Post, 15 January 2003 out of 10 problems in the time allotted. The trio beat 3,850 similar university teams from Following the release of Roman Polanski’s 68 nations. “Pianist” some reviewers felt the director AP, “Polacy najlepsi w programowaniu,” downplayed the factor of Polish anti- Rzeczpospolita, 27 March 2003 Semitism. At least one pundit, writing in The Wall Street Journal, dressed his com- Roman Polaƒski’s movie “Pianist” – based ments in overtly anti-Catholic and anti- upon W∏adys∏aw Szpilman’s recollections Polish rhetoric. It was too much for at least about the Holocaust – won several Oscars this one of his peers at the Chicago Sun-Times: year. Polaƒski comes from an assimilated “I would like to suggest modestly that the Jewish family of Cracow. Although not men and women who have done the Christian converts, the Polaƒskis adopted research on the ‘righteous Poles,’ while some of the customs of their Catholic neigh- politically incorrect, are morally correct bors. Here’s how Roman recalls his first win- because they search for truth instead of ter following the confinement of his family to demanding that it be covered up. The [Wall the Cracow ghetto in 1941: “I also remember Street] Journal writer is immoral – profound- Christmas trees that were sold at the ly immoral – because he believes that horri- Podgórski Market. I begged my father to buy ble memories cannot be kept alive unless

20 Fall 2002

you lie. His hatred for Catholics is so Belorussian SSR. Its tasks included attacking intense that he urges that the truth be sup- the Home Army in north-eastern Poland. In pressed. I wonder how much different he is 1945 the unit was active in Slovakia. Wroƒski’s from the Poles who hated Jews so much that tenure as the minister of culture in the 1970s they stood by silently and lied to them- was characterized by the tightening of censor- selves about what was really going on.” ship. Following the revelations in the Polish Andrew Greely, “Holocaust Film Faces Invective press, Wroƒski fell ill and missed his court Borne of anti-Catholic Bias,” Chicago Sun-Times, date thrice: in January, March, and July 2003. 28 February 2003 “Agent czy tylko partyzant,” Rzeczpospolita, 28 January 2003 May 3rd is observed annually at West Point as KoÊciuszko Day. This year, following a mass In April, the British released official docu- and a sermon recounting KoÊciuszko’s contri- ments concerning the Katyƒ Forest Massacre, butions to America’s freedom, a plaque was a single name for a string of mass shootings by dedicated to Lieutenant General Edward the NKVD of about 28,000 of the Polish elite in Rowny, class of 1941. About 6,000 visitors spring 1940. Her Majesty’s government knew viewed the parade by the Corp of Cadets from the very start that the Soviets perpetrat- which preceeded the unveiling of the plaque. ed the crime. However, for reasons of political Professor Mieczys∏aw Biskupski of Central expediency, from 1943 until 2003, the British Connecticut State University delivered the refused to name the guilty. First, it was the keynote address. matter of inter-Allied solidarity against Nazi Germany. Later, the British were unwilling to In May 2003, Polish TV Polonia screened exacerbate their relations with the Hanna Kramczuk’s documentary about the Communists in Moscow and Warsaw. Polish government-in-exile (1939-1990). The Officially, as late as 1990, the British govern- movie is titled “Z Or∏em w Koronie” (An ment refused to admit its knowledge of the Eagle with a Crown). In 1990 in Warsaw, the culprits. Two weeks later Soviet leader last Polish President-in-exile, Ryszard Mikhail Gorbachev revealed the truth. Kaczorowski, passed his insignia onto the first Jan Nowak Jezioraƒski, “Anglicy milczeli bo si´ democratically elected Polish President, Lech bali,” Gazeta Wyborcza, 8 May 2003 Wa∏´sa, thus symbolically closing the circle which began 51 years earlier with a joint Nazi- In addition to the “Thunderbolt” (Grom) unit Soviet invasion of Poland. of Poland’s elite special forces, other Polish detachments took part in Gulf War Two. They May 12th is observed as “Ponary Day” in included chemical and biological warfare spe- Poland. Between 1941 and 1944, at the Ponary cialists, sappers, and mine sweepers operating Forest near Vilnius (Wilno) the Nazis and out of Jordan, Kuwait, and Turkey as well as a their Lithuanian accomplices shot about logistical war ship, Kontradmira∏ Xawery 100,000 people, mostly Polish Jews but also Czernicki, in the Gulf. up to 20,000 Polish Christian elite. Along with Rzeczpospolita, 20 March and 2 April 2003 Palmiry and Katyƒ, Ponary was a site where the most massive shootings of Polish citizens “Finally, there is the vexed question of our took place during the Second World War. relations with Europe – or rather, with European nations. Here our policies should be After Professor Wojciech Roszkowski guided neither by a petty desire for revenge revealed in his highly popular Newest History against France and Germany nor by the felt of Poland, 1914-1993 (Najnowsza historia Polski, diplomatic imperative to make nice. Our inter- 1914-1993) that the former Communist minis- est lies in strengthening the power of our ter of culture Stanis∏aw Wroƒski had connec- friends in Europe and marginalizing our foes. tions to the KGB, the offended ex-apparatchik That means that we should continue to culti- sued the eminent historian for defamation. A vate our ties to Eastern Europe. It also means flurry of research revealed that Wroƒski not that we should stop encouraging the central- only was affiliated with the KGB but also had ization of political power on the Continent. For earlier been an operative with an NKVD death several years, we have told Eastern Europe to squad. From February 1943 Wroƒski served join the European Union and have blessed the as the deputy (political) commander of the EU’s efforts to devise a common defense and special operations NKVD unit “Olymp” of the foreign policy. It is hard to imagine a European

21 Nihil Novi

policy more perversely counter to our interest. for the central states. Hosting the logistical And it is time for the Bush administration to and training infrastructure of the US armed show the same boldness and imagination in its forces in Europe, Poland could aspire to the approach to alliance diplomacy that it has role of Israel on the Vistula, that is a trusted shown, to such good effect, in Iraq.” and useful ally of the superpower. This would “Victory and After,” National Review, 5 May 2003, be a very risky way for two reasons at least. p. 12. First, because of its geographic location, it is hard to assist Poland militarily. Second, one The Polish zone in Iraq touches Baghdad in cannot be sure that we can ever become a the north but mostly consists of southern partner important enough for a global power Shiite areas adjacent to the border with not to sacrifice us on the altar of its strategic Kuwait. It encompasses 50,000 square miles interests. The benefit derived from this and a population of about 3 million Iraquis. arrangement would be that we would decide The Polish zone is divided into three parts. out our fate for better or worse.” The Poles control the area around Babil and Radek Sikorski, “Plan ‘B’,” Wprost, Karbala; the Ukrainians supervise the region 20 March 2003

of Vaseet; and the Spanish are in charge of the provinces of An-Nadzhaf and al-Kadiseeya. According to the newest census figures of June The “Polish” army division in Iraq consists of 2003, most inhabitants of Poland, 36,983,700 per- 10,000 troops from 16 countries commanded sons (96.74%), declared themselves of Polish by General Andrzej Tyszkiewicz. The Poles nationality. 774,900 (2.03%) failed to identify sent the largest contingent of troops: 2,300 themselves nationally. And 471,500 citizens men. They are reinforced by 1,800 Ukrainians, (1.23%) claimed to belong to various ethnic 413 Bulgarians, 300 Hungarians, 149 minority groups. Among them, 173,200 declared Romanians, 85 Slovaks, and 50 Lithuanians. themselves as Silesians, 152,900 as Germans, The Spaniards pledged 1,300 soldiers. The 48,700 as Belorussians, 31,000 as Ukrainians, detachments from Honduras, El Salvador, 12,900 as Roma, 6,100 as Russians, 5,900 as Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic are Lemko, 5,800 as Lithuanians, 5,100 as Kashubs, directly subordinated to the Spanish brigade. 2,000 as Slovaks, 1,100 as Jews, 1,100 as The Filipinos, the Fijians, and the Thais also Armenians, 800 as Czechs, 500 as Tartars, 50 as serve under the Poles. Norway, the Karaim, and over 16,000 as others. The authori- Netherlands, and Denmark dispatched only ties were baffled by the sudden emergence of the staff officers to the Polish zone. Silesians as the largest, self-identified minority. Rzeczpospolita, 30 April, 23 May, 3 and 17 June 2003 At the same time, 37,405,300 citizens (97.8%) stated that they speak Polish at home as their “I would like to let you know that I am very everyday language. Further, 36,894,400 (96.5%) much looking forward to my visit in Cracow. I persons listed Polish as the only language they would like to tell the Poles how together we use. The most popular second language used at can achieve our common goals: world peace, home was German – 204,600 respondents – fol- free markets, and how to combat terrorism. I lowed by English – 89,900 citizens. also would like to thank Poland and the Polish http://www.stat.gov.pl/; “Ma∏o Bia∏orusinów, government for supporting the operation to du˝o Âlàzaków,” Rzeczpospolita, 18 June 2003

stabilize Iraq.” President George W. Bush 58.85% of Polish voters participated in the Gazeta Wyborcza, 25 May 2003 European Union referendum on June 7. 77.45% voted “yes,” while 22.55% “no”. Voter “Devoid of the Franco-German engine, the participation was highest among large town rest of Europe would most likely transform dwellers over 40 years old. More men voted itself soon into a free trade zone, closer to the than women, but the latter voted in the affir- union prior to the Treaty of Maastricht rather mative more often than the former. The urban- than to a federal state. If Poland remained in ites also favored the EU accession more fre- the outside zone, it could benefit from free quently than the denizens of the countryside. trade and it could orient its security policy Rzeczpospolita, 9 and 12 June 2003 toward the mightiest nation in the world. New Most Frenchmen (54%) object to the expansion Europe, that is, Great Britain, Spain, perhaps of the EU eastward. Only 31% support the Italy, and the majority of the post-Communist idea. However, in Greece 71% favor expan- Europe, would constitute the counterweight sion, while in Spain and Portugal – 60%, and

22 Fall 2003

in Italy – 59%. The statistics for other EU “Germans continuously complain that their members are as follows: Belgium – 44% civilians perished during the Allied bombing against and 33% for; Austria 44% against and of Germany. That testifies to their overweening 43% for; UK – 36% against and 36% for; and pride and hubris. And it proves that they have Germany 39% against and 42% for. 63% of the not understood the lesson of the Second World Danes support the idea, as do 56% Swedes and War. Let us not delude ourselves that ordinary 50% Finns. Germans did not know about concentration “Czeka nas ch∏odne przyj´cie,” Rzeczpospolita, camps, ghettos, etc. Germans were expelled 18 June 2003 [from East Central Europe] because they lost the war. And it was additionally a total war: Polish architect Janusz Obst, who had once against civilians. Before you erect a monument headed a team of over sixty sculptors in recon- to the expelees, one must cry over these who structing the Royal Castle in Warsaw, may be were killed. Stop pitying the Germans because commissioned to reconstruct the Tomb of the they are not being maltreated.” Unknowns at the Arlington National Marek Edelman interviewed by Krzysztof Cemetery. Brunetko and Jaros∏aw Makowski, “Nie litowaç “Tomb of Unknowns is Due for Replacement,” si´ nad Niemcami,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. The Los Angeles Times, 29 June 2003 33/2003.

1,600 boxes with documents and items belong- Irena Sendler, a Righteous Gentile who is ing to Polish soldiers stationed in Scotland credited with saving over 2,000 Jewish chil- during the Second World War were returned dren from the Warsaw Ghetto, was awarded to Poland by the British Ministry of Defense. the Jan Karski Award of Valor and Courage The boxes contain military documents, love for 2003. letters, photographs, trinkets, and musical instruments. “I lived in pre-war Poland, later in the part Marion Scott, “The Wartime Capsule,” that was occupied by the Soviet army. When The Sunday Mail, 15 June 2003 the Germans destroyed Russia, I suffered under the German occupation, and then once According to scholar Jadwiga Rodowicz, the again under the Soviet one. Later, we were Japanese educator and diplomat Inazo Nitobe expelled from Lwów to the Polish People’s (1862-1933) was inspired by Poland’s history Republic. I experienced five different [politi- and, in turn, inspired Polish nationalism. cal] systems. All of them were awful. One can Known in the West principally as the author of remember with a tear in one’s eye the time of Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900), he also served [emperor] Franz Joseph. And, naturally, that as a high official of the League of Nations. Lwów, parts of which I can see in my dreams. “Nitobe learned from Poland’s experience. As It does not exist anymore. But I hope – per- Poland had long been dismembered by the haps it is ugly what I am about to say but three major powers of Austria, Prussia and maybe not – that Lwów returns to Poland. Russia, he was well aware that Japan had to This used to be a Polish city probably since modernize to survive the 19th-century Boleslaus the Brave.” encroachment in Asia by European powers and Stanis∏aw Lem interviewed by Ewa Lipska, Russia.” According to Rodowicz, “he mourned “Mi´dzy czosnkiem a wiecznoÊcià,” Gazeta Poland’s lost freedom as if he himself were a Wyborcza, 15 August 2003. Pole.” Nitobe’s Bushido influenced a generation of Polish nationalists. In his memoirs, Nitobe Founded in 1947 by Dr. Tomasz Potasz, the recalled with fondness his meetings with Józef Polish University Club of Los Angeles awards Pi∏sudski and Marie Sk∏odowska Curie. The scholarships to California residents of Polish former expressed his admiration for Japan’s descent who are pursuing a Bachelor’s or victory over Russia in 1905. Madame Curie higher degree. For the 2003-2004 academic impressed upon the Japanese diplomat the year, the PUC presented scholarships totaling importance of patriotism for the Poles. $17,000.00 to 17 Polish-American students. Ko Hirano, “Did 1900 Bushido disseminator Among this year’s scholarship recipients are inspire Polish independence?” The Japan Times on students at UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of line, 9 August 2003, at Houston, Loyola Marymount University and http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarti- Stanford. Their fields of study include medi- cle.pl5?nn20030809b4.htm cine, law, computer science, math, history,

23 Nihil Novi

biology, architecture and interior design. Polish-American Foundation for Economic Besides helping students financially, the PUC Research and Education strives to promote knowledge about Poland Pro Publico Bono has sponsored the translation and and Polish cultural activities in the communi- distribution in Poland of works by Ludwig von ty, especially among the youth. To this end, Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Hernando de Soto, and the scholarship applicants are required as part other libertarian and classical liberal economists. It of the application process to write short also organizes conferences popularizing free mar- research papers on a Polish or Polish- ket ideas in Poland and the United States. American topic of their own choosing. Past For further information please contact Mr. John paper topics were as diverse as the bison of M. Ma∏ek at PAFERE, P.O. Box 1475, Torrance, CA Poland, the Polish contribution to the Haitian 90505, [email protected] www.kapitalizm.republi- revolution of the 19th century, and the Polish ka.pl, ph. (703) 599-5733, fax (310) 316-6888 style of negotiation. For more information about the Polish University Club of Los Angeles, please visit www.pucla.org. Book Reviews

John Radzi∏owski, The Eagle and the Cross: A left the Polish countryside during the crucial History of the Polish Roman Catholic Union in years of the late nineteenth century and signif- America, 1873-2000 (Boulder, CO. and New York: icant numbers left after World War II and again East European Monographs and Columbia in recent decades. But these immigrants did not University Press, 2003). merely affect Polish history by their absence. In America, many immigrants developed a heightened sense of Polishness. When Polish culture was restricted and even banned in the old country, many immigrants first heard Chopin, read Mickiewicz, or celebrated May 3rd in America. Many immigrants who came from impoverished rural areas were first exposed to the glories of Poland in Chicago, Buffalo, or Detroit rather than in Kraków, Warsaw, or Poznaƒ. In addition, Polish immigrants sent millions of dollars to rebuild Poland after both world wars. Tens of thousands joined a volunteer army during World War I to fight on behalf of Polish liberty. Having experienced democracy, free- dom of speech, and the right to vote in America, immigrants transmitted those ideals back to their friends and family in their home villages For many years, the history of the Polish through letters and visits. If today Poland is con- diaspora in America has been treated as a topic sidered one of the most pro-American countries of minor importance. Polish scholars have tend- in Europe, this is a result of attitudes engendered ed to view immigrants as part of the history of by Polish immigrants. other countries and no longer germane to the In America, Poles shaped urban, industrial story of Poland. American scholars have also life. They were a driving force behind the devel- largely ignored Polonia, whether through unfa- opment and expansion of major urban centers miliarity with the Polish language or ignorance. such as Chicago and Detroit. Poles played a crucial Yet this immigration of millions of people though often forgotten in role in America’s first from one country to the other had a major civil rights movement—the struggle for the rights impact on both Poland and America. Millions of workers in the decades prior to World War II.

24 Fall 2003

John Radzi∏owski’s book, The Eagle and the Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History (New Cross, is an effort to shed light on this often-over- York: Doubleday, 2003). looked history by focusing on the history of the first significant Polish organization in the New World, the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America (PRCUA). The Union, a fraternal insur- ance society founded in 1873, was based on the ideals of Catholic positivism and was in harmo- ny with the intellectual and cultural trends that were prominent in Poland at that time. Many of its founders had their roots in a rejection of Romanticism. Instead, they sought to build up Poland’s moral, economic, educational, and cul- tural resources through “organic work.” These ideas were adapted to the needs of Polish immigrants in America by the priests and sisters of Congregation of the Resurrection, founded in Paris by Polish expatriates in the 1830s. The Resurrectionists were engaged in a vigorous counterattack against socialism, mate- rialism, and modernism. Through the PRCUA, The masters of the Gulag, like the func- they sought to keep Polish immigrants faithful to tionaries of the Nazi camps, were once confident the Catholic Church, true to their Polish heritage, that their crimes would remain secret. “All the and to avoid the temptations and perils of the murderers, provocateurs and informers had one new industrial cities. As Radzi∏owski shows, by feature in common,” Nadezhda Mandelshtam, the 1920s the PRCUA developed a major and the widow of the Russian poet Osip impressive range of activities that reached out to Mandelshtam who perished in the Gulag, wrote. the Polish community in America but which also “It never occurred to them that their victims mobilized that community to aid the cause of might one day rise up again and speak.” A fun- Poland where needed. damental difference between the Nazi and The book breaks new ground in that it is the Soviet henchmen was that the latter have come first English-language history of this important much closer to having their wish fulfilled. As organization, which continues to play a key role the Allied soldiers tore down the barbed wire in American Polonia to this day. Radzi∏owski fences of Buchenwald and Dachau, exposing argues that in the past, scholars of Polonia have unspeakable horrors to camera crews, the focused more attention on secular, radical, or world was by and large turning its back on sur- dissenter organizations, often overlooking vivors’ stories regarding the ongoing horrors of groups like the PRCUA and generally taking for the camps run by the West’s greatest ally, granted the importance of Catholicism (in all its Joseph Stalin. complexity) in shaping the character of the Stories of Bolshevik atrocities and modern Polish diaspora. It chronicles the range and Soviet slavery had circulated in the West since impact of PRCUA activities and shows how con- the 1917 revolution and the civil war, and nected American Polonia has been to both continued to appear after World War II and dur- American and Polish history over the last centu- ing the cold war, only to be routinely dismissed ry and a half. Intriguingly, the book suggests, by largely left-leaning leaders of Western public but does not fully develop, a connection between opinion as projections of anti-Soviet political the ideals of late nineteenth and early twentieth agendas, or simply private grievances of a few century Polish positivism and the philosophical disgruntled individuals. And although the pub- roots of Pope John Paul II. lication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag The Eagle and the Cross fills an important gap Archipelago in the 1970s did change quite a few in our knowledge about Polish and American Western minds and made it difficult for others to history and challenges scholars to rethink the continue dismissing the topic, one thing role of the millions of people who helped build remained unchanged: the only evidence about two nations. the Gulag was the “anecdotal evidence” of those survivors determined enough to speak out. Their stories could not be verified and thereby 25 Nihil Novi

turned into hard evidence as long as the Soviet early 1930s, and analyzes the Great Terror of the Union guarded its bloody secrets. late 1930s. Part Two, “Life and Work in the This situation was supposed to have Camps,” departs from the linear historical narra- changed with the collapse of the Soviet state. To tive in order to present the reader with a rich, an extent, it did change, allowing scholars to panoramic view of the human experience in the establish some basic facts about the Gulag’s his- Gulag. Just as in parts of Solzhenitsyn’s The tory. But the new Russian state has proven anx- Gulag Archipelago, the chapters focus here on key ious beyond expectation to assume the role of elements of life in the camps: “Arrest;” “Prison;” chief guard of the skeletons in the old Soviet “Transport, Arrival, Selection;” “Life in the closet: today, scholars have even less of a chance Camps;” “Work in the Camps;” “Punishments of gaining access to key Soviet archival sources and Rewards;” “The Guards;” “The Prisoners;” than a decade ago. “Women and Children;” “The Dying;” We must be aware of this context to fully “Strategies of Survival;” “Rebellion and Escape.” appreciate the unusual value of Anne Part Three, “The Rise and Fall of the Camp Applebaum’s magisterial Gulag: A History. Industrial Complex, 1940-1986,” resumes the his- When many scholars, particularly in the West, torical chronology of Part One. In it, we complained about the unavailability of Soviet encounter a wealth of hitherto unknown or little sources, she demonstrated exceptional ingenuity known information about the Gulag during and in tracking, exposing, and researching scores of after World War II, the reduction of the Gulag these sources despite official obstacles. Her book system after Stalin’s death, and political prison- provides specific answers to many questions ers in the camps of 1960s, 70s, and 80s, until the about the Soviet camps, which up until now final collapse of the Soviet regime. have remained subject to speculative “theories.” It took much courage and faith for Gulag This comprehensive, panoramic history of the survivors to write about their experiences. In the Gulag is not limited to an account of bureaucrat- West, they faced the public’s skepticism, often ic decisions, reports, and numbers, although it dismissal, and sometimes hostility. In their own goes further than any other historical narrative countries, usually under the Soviet empire, they in this respect. Applebaum’s purpose is deeper: either took the risk of challenging Communist she complements the archival, material research dictatorships by publishing their stories under- of the political and systemic aspects of the Gulag ground or abroad, or only hoped that in the with ample use of survivors’ memoirs, thus giv- future the Soviet order would perish and their ing the reader both a historical analysis of the stories would be there to expose the past. In any Soviet camp system and a profound insight into case, Gulag survivors hoped to reestablish his- the human experience in the camps. To achieve torical justice by having their testimonies to one this complementarity is more difficult than it of history’s most brutal tyrannies proven true at might initially seem. It requires from an author some point in the future. Anne Applebaum’s the knowledge, sensitivity, and self-discipline brilliant work does just that. For anyone con- necessary to distinguish between the two central cerned with the human legacy of the twentieth functions of each survivor’s story: a factographic century, there is no excuse for not having read it. function (subject to historical verification) and an In fact, given the multiethnic character of the insight into the human experience. All too often Gulag’s victims: Russians, Ukrainians, Balts, these two aspects become confused by less Jews, Poles, Koreans, Kazakhs, and others, sophisticated scholars and get in each other’s Applebaum’s tour de force should become way. Anne Applebaum’s book is in this respect a mandatory reading not only in Soviet history model from which all historians with larger and Marxist studies but also in many courses on humanist ambitions may learn a lot. oppression, genocide, and multiculturalism Gulag: A History is structured into three which proliferate on our campuses parts. Part One, “The Origins of the Gulag, 1917- 1939,” discusses the ideological, historical, polit- Dariusz To∏czyk ical, and moral genesis of the Bolshevik concen- The author is a professor of Slavic literature tration camps and slave labor. It leads us at UVA through the complex and fast-changing story of the Bolshevik system of oppression during the civil war and the New Economic Policy of the 1920s. It addresses collectivization and the role of slave labor in Stalin’s industrialization of the

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Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, After the Holocaust: do all members of the “opposing” sides viewed Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War Two the other as a monolith. (Boulder, CO. and New York: East European Apart from disputes over property (which Monographs and Columbia University Press, some Poles did not want to return to their right- 2003). ful owners) and common banditry (which was widespread in those times of lawlessness and affected both Jews and Poles), Chodakiewicz marshals considerable evidence of the participa- tion of some Jews in the state security apparatus and the little known phenomenon of revenge. In each case, he examines carefully the Polish reac- tion before categorizing an occurrence as self- defense or act of anti-Semitism. In many cases, however, the perpetrators and circumstances remain rather murky and, without further research, it is premature to draw conclusions or even identify presumed patterns. That these events occurred is undeniable, however, respon- sibility for them cannot a priori be assigned to the insurgents. A chapter that will strike most readers as extraordinary, and out of keeping with custom- ary portrayal of the period and of the Polish Marek Jan Chodakiewicz’s groundbreak- underground, is the one that deals with person- ing study, After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish al relations between insurgents and Jews. In Conflict in the Wake of World War II, eschews postwar show trials of beleaguered anti- standard, but facile, interpretations of Polish- Communist insurgents, Jews testified fairly fre- Jewish relations found in the literature on the quently on behalf of Poles who had rendered topic, whether as a continuation of the assistance to them during the German occupa- Holocaust or as a manifestation of traditional tion. Remarkably, Jewish witnesses even came Polish anti-Semitism. Instead the author identi- forward on behalf of members of the National fies and focuses on sources of conflict that Armed Forces, who were especially vilified by increasingly polarized relations between Poles, the Stalinist regime. especially those engaged in the struggle The chapter that deals with Jewish losses against the Communists, and Jews in the after- will doubtless arouse controversy. math of the Second World War. These issues Chodakiewicz does not omit in his tally the fact and tensions are treated thematically in the that Poles were also victimized by some Jews. specific context of postwar developments, as From a scholarly point of view, this approach is the author traces the ebbs and flows of interac- eminently justifiable and restores even-handed- tion on various levels. ness to the treatment of this issue. It is important In his examination of the essential back- to remember, as the author continually under- ground, Chodakiewicz describes the Soviet scores, that only those who perpetrated wrong- takeover of Poland from 1944, the reaction of the doings are responsible for them and that the mis- independentist forces and the resultant anticom- deeds of members of one national group should munist insurrection. He then turns his attention not be projected on the entire community. By the to the situation of the Jewish community and its same token, accountability for them cannot be growing identification, both actual and per- glossed over, as some members of the Jewish ceived, with the Soviet-sponsored regime. In the community both then and now candidly admit. following chapters he discusses how Jews were Significantly, Chodakiewicz confirms the viewed in the propaganda of the independentist validity of historian David Engel’s recent lower- camp and by the insurgents. These topics are ing of the estimated toll of Jewish victims during treated in a multifaceted way thus avoiding a this period to under 1,000. Moreover, he reaf- simplistic dichotomy of motivation and a broad- firms Engel’s tentative conclusion that “it will brush attribution of uniform and entrenched not do to represent anti-Jewish violence simply stances. Furthermore, the lines that separated the as a continuation of ancient hatreds that the Nazi two communities were not always clear cut, nor Holocaust either intensified or, at the very least,

27 Nihil Novi

failed to uproot, without reference to the politi- ancestors had fought under the leadership of the cal context in which it occurred.” Polish general. As a thank you for Pu∏aski’s con- Chodakiewicz is a cautious historian who tributions, the pilot decided to assist Poland. It does not arrive at sweeping conclusions from an was 1919, and the young Polish state was fighting examination of only one or two incidents. His against Soviet Russia. Cooper organized a vol- canvassing of sources is nothing short of remark- unteer group of American Air Force pilots. able, and he crosschecks all available Jewish and Fauntleroy became the squadron leader. Polish sources on the topic. After the Holocaust is a This story, little known in both the United pioneering and important work that invites fur- States and Poland, is the subject of Janusz Cisek’s ther research. The blueprint for future discussion KoÊciuszko, We are here! American Pilots of the is solidly laid in this seminal study which cannot Kosciuszko Squadron Defense of Poland, 1919-1921. be ignored by historians, students, and those who Historian and former director of the Józef Pi∏sud- share an interest in this topic. As eminent histori- ski Institute in New York, Cisek narrates how, an Richard C. Lukas put it: “Professor after Poland regained her independence in 1918, Chodakiewicz is to be congratulated on his the Americans provided her with significant meticulously researched and well-written book humanitarian aid. Much of this can be credited which should help to banish the simplistic inter- to Herbert Hoover. Military assistance grew out pretations of Polish-Jewish relations that have of the humanitarian effort. Early in 1919, Merian dominated the literature on this subject.” Cooper, a pilot and World War I veteran, became the head of Hoover’s American Relief Richard Tyndorf Administration in Lwów, Poland. He conclud- Dr. Tyndorf is an independent scholar in ed, however, that what would benefit Poland Canada more was his experience as an Air Force pilot. In April of 1919, he wrote a letter to Marshal Józef Pi∏sudski, the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armies, to inform him about his links to Pu∏aski and the debt he would like to repay. Pi∏sudski agreed to Cooper’s serving in the Polish Air Janusz Cisek, Kosciuszko, We are here! Force. The American then traveled to Paris to American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron Defense find more volunteers among his countrymen of Poland, 1919-1921 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & who were still stationed in Europe. He prompt- Company 2002). ly ran into Cedric Fauntleroy, an experienced flier, who joined him in his quest to help the Poles. On September 1, 1919, seven more American pilots signed contracts as officers of the Polish Air Force. As Cisek shows, financial considerations did not enter into the equation – as Polish officers, the Americans earned much less than in the US Army. Nor could they expect much fame. The anti-Communist war in Poland’s borderlands was a local conflict on the fringes of Europe. On the contrary, they risked brutal treatment by the Bolsheviks should they fall into their hands. Cooper had learned about U.S. volunteer pilots in Poland, 1920 Bolshevism from Russian officers while in a German POW camp; he believed that Poland When American F-16 fighter planes join was fighting not only on behalf of its own inter- Poland’s Air Force, this will be the perfect occa- ests but also in defense of Western civilization sion to christen the new squadrons with the and that by fighting in Poland, he was defending names of Merian Cooper and Cedric Fauntleroy. US interests. These are two of America’s most decorated pilots In October, the volunteers arrived in Lwów. who volunteered to aid Poland following the They were assigned to the 7th Squadron along First World War. Americans are familiar with with four Polish pilots. Fauntleroy took over the two Poles – heroes of the United States’ fight for command. In December 1919, the unit was chris- independence – KoÊciuszko and Pu∏aski. Cooper tened the Tadeusz KoÊciuszko squadron – hero had a particular link to the latter as one of his of Poland and America. Eliot Chess designed

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the division’s emblem, consisting of the plane accidents. One of the contested issues in American stars and white-and-red stripes, peas- the reconstruction project at Eagle Cubs ant battle scythes, and a four-cornered Polish Cemetery is the rebuilding of this monument. insurgent cap. The Ukrainians oppose it even though the In the spring of 1920, the squadron was sent Americans were not fighting against them. into battle. The 7th Squadron consisted of eleven In the spring of 1939, Fauntleroy offered planes, twelve pilots, two navigators, and thirty his services to the Polish military once again. mechanics. The first encounter with the enemy The war broke out before the details of his mis- took place on March 5, 1920, when Harmon sions had been worked out. In 1940, the Polish Rorison bombed a train station full of Bolshevik 303rd RAF Squadron took over the emblem of soldiers. The pilots were bombing and strafing the 7th Squadron and achieved glory in the bridges and train stations. During one of the Battle of Britain. missions, Edwin Noble was wounded. Rorison’s plane was shot down over enemy territory, but Tomasz Staƒczyk he managed to make his way back to the Polish (translated and edited by TD) side. Jerry Weber and Kenneth Shrewsbury flew to Kiev with instructions for the Polish detach- ments to withdraw. The pilots attacked Budion’s cavalry, slowing down its momentum. During one of his flights, Fauntleroy noticed that the track on which a train full of Polish soldiers Gunnar S. Paulsson, Secret City: The Hidden was traveling was mined. He landed in front of Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945 (New Haven: Yale the engine and saved the lives of many soldiers. University Press, 2002). Arthur Kelley died on July 15 when his plane was shot down. Cooper, also shot down, was captured by the Bolsheviks but managed to escape in the spring of 1921. Meanwhile, Fauntleroy was entrusted with the overall command of the Air Force operating on the Southern Front. George Crawford took over the 7th Squadron. The pilots played a deci- sive role in August 1920 when Lwów found itself in great danger. During these critical days, Polish and American pilots dropped bombs and strafed the enemy’s cavalry; the planes flew sev- eral missions per day. On August 16 and 17, the pilots of the 7th Squadron stopped the advance of the 6th Division of the Red Cavalry Army. According to Cisek, this was a strategic victory because if the city fell, the Polish line of defense would have been broken, and additional Bolshevik forces would have descended on Of all the ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland, Warsaw. Isaac Babel, who took part in the battle, none is better known than Warsaw. The dramat- wrote that the Poles defended themselves suc- ic, tragic, or heroic scenes of the Umschlagplatz, cessfully thanks, in large part, to their Air Force. Janusz Korczak’s orphanage, or the Ghetto Soviet testimonies suggest that the pilots were Uprising of April 1943 are burned into the mind more dangerous than the Polish infantry and of anyone who has studied the Holocaust. They cavalry. On September 23, 1920, two months have been portrayed in novels, plays, and on tel- after the victorious battles of August, the 7th evision and in movies. Yet it may be this very Squadron ended its tour of duty. notoriety that has led many to take for granted or Nine American volunteer pilots were deco- ignore surprising and important facts about the rated with Virtuti Militari crosses. A monument fate of Warsaw’s Jews during World War II. honoring the American pilots was erected in Because of this, the author of Secret City: The 1925 at the Eagle Cubs Cemetery in Lwów where Hidden Jews of Warsaw, Gunnar S. Paulsson, has Kelly, who died in battle, was buried along with rendered scholars and the general public a great Graves and McCallum, who lost their lives in service by casting new light on a well-known

29 Nihil Novi

topic and on familiar sources. Although this became clear, leaving was seen a form of betray- book is not without its errors and problems, al. In addition, until nearly the end, it was not Paulsson’s Secret City is one of the most impor- clear that conditions on the outside were that tant books published in recent years on Nazi- much better. It was a widespread myth that sur- occupied Poland and on wartime Polish-Jewish vival on the outside was nearly impossible, interaction. Along with Alexander Rossino’s especially for those without connections or Hitler Strikes Poland,1 Paulsson’s book challenges “good looks” (i.e., non-Semitic appearance). For shopworn assumptions and simplistic stereo- many Jews, especially those who were unassim- types, revealing a more complex picture of these ilated, language, appearance, lifestyle, and lack topics that is long overdue. of connections made existence on the outside The heart of this book is the author’s seem impossible. Even for those who might have attempt to calculate the number of Jews hiding contemplated escape, two years of isolation from on the “Aryan” side of Warsaw. His dramatic the rest of Warsaw left an information vacuum imagery of a “secret city” of hidden fugitive that the regime of smugglers, black marketeers, Jews, rescuers, and the criminals who preyed on and political resistance activists could not or them illustrates his subject though may raise would not fill. some objections. Paulsson revises the number of The first to leave the Ghetto (aside from hidden Jews upward and makes the further those few who has “passed” as Poles from the point that leaving aside acts of war (e.g., the two outset), were those with good connections on the uprisings against the Germans in Warsaw), the outside. Usually such connections were borne of rate of Jewish survival in hiding in Warsaw was pre-war business, political, or social connections similar to that of Western European countries and were found most commonly among the with a far less severe occupation regime such as most assimilated Jews. Nevertheless, as time Holland or even Denmark (230).2 In light of the went on, connections between Jewish fugitives way so many historians and polemicists alike and their rescuers became more and more tenta- have treated the Danish and Dutch cases in con- tive. Nevertheless, even Jews without connec- trast to that of the Polish experience, such con- tions and without “good looks” stood a far better clusions are earthshaking, if not, in some quar- chance of survival outside than inside. Paulsson ters, downright heretical. estimates that 28,000 Jews sought to hide in occu- pied Warsaw at one time or another and that Escape, Evasion, Hiding about 17,000 were still alive and in Warsaw at the start of the Warsaw Uprising on August 1, Paulsson identifies “evasion” as an impor- 1944 (199-200). (The biggest losses occurred due tant and understudied Jewish response to esca- to the Hotel Polski affair, which resulted in the lating German repression and murder (7-13, 246- capture of some 3,500 hidden Jews.) 47). A long thread in the historiography of east After making the initial decision to evade the European Jewry has been the tendency to view Nazis and to escape the Ghetto, the Jews dealt Jews as passive recipients of either anti-Semitic with both allies and enemies. There were both actions or, in a few cases, of aid and rescue.3 The those aiding Jews and those seeking to exploit or literature on Jewish resistance movements is a betray them, most of whom acted out a range of notable exception but between armed resistance motives. The majority of the population of and passivity there is little middle ground. Even Warsaw was at least partially aware of the armed resistance, I would argue, is seen as a “secret city,” and for the most part kept silent reactive response to existing circumstances. about it. In the memoir of Anna Lanota, her What is lacking is the sense of Jews as having cousin was spotted by a former schoolmate historical agency. The author consciously coun- while riding a streetcar. The ex-classmate started ters this tendency by stressing the process of shouting “Catch the Jewess!” Lanota’s crippled escape, evasion, and hiding as one initiated by cousin got off the streetcar and escaped into the Jews themselves. He describes this as an “inspir- crowd (112). Paulsson suggests how such mem- ing story of self-help” (14) and even suggests oirs have been misread. How for example did a that rescuers are secondary in importance in the crippled Jewish girl manage to escape from a process of Jewish escape, evasion, and hiding.4 whole streetcar of apparently healthy anti- The majority of Jews in the Warsaw did not Semites? If all Poles were as ready to turn in Jews have an opportunity to escape the Ghetto. For as has been popularly portrayed why did this ran- the majority, until the deportations began in dom cross sample of Varsovians take no action earnest and the German plans for mass murder when a Jew in hiding was exposed in their midst?

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As Paulsson points out, a single hooligan or Methodology and Sources blackmailer could wreak severe damage on Jews in hiding, but it took the silent passivity of a The data which form the heart of Secret City whole crowd to maintain their cover. provide a too-rare example of how a historian Blackmailers (szmalcowniks) were plentiful can combine qualitative and quantitative sources in Warsaw. Jewish memoirs mention many to develop a fuller picture of a particular encounters with gangs of them. Paulsson esti- moment in time. The quantitative sources in mates that their total numbers, however, were questions consist primarily of surviving lists of very small, “1 or 2 percent” of all Warsaw Poles Jews in hiding who received assistance from aid (113). The damage that a criminal class could do, organizations while the qualitative sources are however, was substantial. Most blackmailers largely memoirs. Such an approach is not used were interested in money and turning in large enough and particularly in Holocaust studies numbers of Jews to the Germans would have there is too often an aversion to quantifying the been counterproductive to their extortion busi- past (18-19). Although a strictly quantitative his- ness. Nevertheless, by stripping Jews of assets torian might look askance at some of the materi- needed for food and bribes, harassing rescuers, al presented here and there is no such thing a raising the overall level of insecurity, and forcing “perfect” statistic or source, Paulsson uses num- hidden Jews to seek out safer accommodations bers in a sensible and convincing fashion. (which was a risky business), blackmailers This is not to say that the book is complete- added significantly to the danger Jews faced and ly free of problems in this area. The methodolo- thus increased their chances of getting caught gy used is sometimes unclear and author some- and killed. times omits explanatory footnotes. (Though this may have been a decision of the publisher Secret City instead of the author.) Frequently there are interesting, controversial, or puzzling state- Paulsson’s imagery of a “secret city” of hid- ments that a reader might like to know about or den Jews within occupied Warsaw may seem at that might serve as research projects in them- first glance overly dramatic. However, he makes selves that are not footnoted. One often gets the a convincing case that such a thing did exist. It impression that the author is using more was a network connecting “every Jew in hiding sources than appear in the notes. A case in point to every other.” It had its own culture, argot, and is Table 1.3 in which Paulsson tries to calculate communication network. (News of the Hotel the number of Warsaw Jews who voted for non- Polski trap, for example, spread with surprising Jewish parties in the 1938 municipal election speed among Jews in hiding.) Organizations like (39-40). The figure of 18 percent is an “approxi- ˚egota and the Jewish National Committee were mate picture” drawn from some source with the organization life of the secret city. “corrections” made for “various factors.” There This imagery is in keeping with Polish is no note and no source listed and no explana- descriptions of life in occupied Poland, stretch- tion of the corrections nor the “various fac- ing back to Jan Karski wartime book Story of a tors.” Standard secondary sources, such as Secret State. Where we might question Edward Wynot’s excellent history of interwar Paulsson’s description is of a Jewish secret city Warsaw, and primary statistical compilations that existed separately from the Polish one. (e.g., Concise Statistical Year-Book of Poland, (Paulsson alludes several times to a parallel Statystyka Polski) do not provide an obvious Polish secret city and to the large number of basis for such an estimate.5 This is not to say Polish fugitives hiding from the Nazis in that 18 percent is necessarily wrong, only that Warsaw.) While the author is right to stress the there is no basis to judge the validity of the esti- fact of Jewish self-help, in fact it is doubtful mate. It should not be necessary to remind the that the network of Jews in hiding could have reader that notes serve a variety of important survived as they did without the existence of a purposes. There is a “negative” function of “secret city” of Poles (which the author men- simply backing up an author’s assertions as tions only in passing). Although Jews in hiding well as “positive” function of providing guide- were a special target for both the German posts for future scholars who will elaborate on authorities and Warsaw’s criminal class, the the subject of the note. Notes provide impor- underlying context and the basic problems of tant clues about sources and methods other life underground affected both Jews and Poles scholars may wish to use and inadequate foot- in hiding. notes hinder scholarly communication.

31 Nihil Novi

Paulsson’s treatment of qualitative sources because they do not portray the Jewish individu- provides an even more interesting subject for dis- als in a positive light and because he could not cussion. The author comments very positively on find the author’s name in any postwar survivor Jan T. Gross’ “affirmative” approach to memoirs lists (which he himself notes are not always reli- of Jewish Holocaust survivors in which scholars able). Nevertheless, this book is vouched for by essentially suspend their critical faculties. He Prof. M. Wieliczko who prepared the manuscript rightly notes that most Holocaust scholars follow for publication with the author, now a citizen of such methodology (17-18).6 Having said this, Israel. Clearly, this book should not have been however, Paulsson then goes on to violate in the denounced out of hand without further investi- most shocking fashion Gross’ “affirmative” gation.8 At the same time, he accepts the mem- approach. Although he describes his approach as oirs of Jack Eisner even though serious questions “slightly more restrictive” than Gross’ in truth have been raised about its authenticity. Also Paulsson, in contrast to Gross, is far more careful rejected are all of the memoirs of Polish rescuers and judicious in using testimonies and memoirs. in the files of the Jewish Historical Institute in There are numerous examples of this in the book Warsaw (21-22). The main criteria seems to be (see also the case of Lanota’s memoir above). that they are written by Poles and some ask for Paulsson notes that survivor testimonies too monetary compension.9 often record the unusual: Warsaw’s Multi-Ethnic Criminals, the “Another effect that has been stressed is that Polish Right, and Other Matters of the ‘dog that did not bark in the night,’ the natural tendency of untrained observers to pay One puzzling omission in Paulsson’s other- attention to what is exceptional rather than what wise solid discussion of the regime of blackmail- is representative. This is reflected in the histori- ers and criminals that preyed on people hiding ography, which tends to focus on the extreme in the “secret city,” is that they are treated as cases: people who risked their lives to help Jews, entirely Polish. Since 40 percent of Warsaw’s on one hand; rabid antisemites and collaborators population before the war was Jewish, it is no on the other. ‘Mr and Mrs Kowalski’ might not surprise that Jews were also found in the city’s have liked Jews and might have felt nervous criminal underworld and during the war these about having them next door in the face of criminals—joined by others out of need or German threats, but in situation where Jews opportunity—would have been active at their faced immediate danger, they tended to be neu- former “professions.”10 So szmalcowniks and tral or passively protective. even German agents were not merely Poles, but One reason for distorted post-war per- Jews as well. spectives is that much of our knowledge and This is confirmed in both research and mem- many of our beliefs about this period come from oir literature.11 Many szmalcownik gangs found Jewish activists, whose situation was not at all it helpful to employ at least a few Jewish confed- typical. Activists tended to come into contact erates to help them find Jewish victims. (As mainly with problem cases, were forced to seek Paulsson point out, though, it was not strictly helpers on the open market since their own con- necessary to do so since Poles were able to do it tacts were soon exhausted and moved in small themselves in many cases.) In addition, the vari- circles in which everyone knew everyone else. ous arms of the German authorities employed Consequently, they tended to underestimate the Jews as catchers to hunt down Jews in hiding amount of spontaneous help that was extended both prior to and after the liquidation of the to Jews, overestimate the dangers facing them, Warsaw Ghetto. The most infamous were the so- and, because they were politically engaged, called “Thirteens” who took their name from largely in anti-assimilationist parties, they often their headquarters on 13 Leszno Street.12 One had a jaundiced view of Polish society” (163).7 memoir even records a child’s rhyme that circu- lated at the time: While the author might describe his approach as a “slight” difference from that of Mummy, Daddy, listen do Gross’ this reviewer would describe it as “good With a German the Gestapo came two historical methodology.” by two Not all Paulsson methodological choices are What a shame, what a disgrace good ones. For example, he out right rejects the The first was a Pole, the second a Jew! memoirs of Sara Kraus-Kolkowicz, merely Mummy, Daddy, listen do

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Here come the Gestapo, do you know who? author, mistakenly calls the Miecz i P∏ug (Sword What a shame, the worst disgrace and Plow) group “collaborationist”.17 The first is a Jew, and the second is too! There are a number of minor errors here and there in Secret City. For example, the author mis- The author, Ruth Altbeker Cyprys, also translates “równy ch∏op” as “regular guy” when writes that after the liquidation of the Ghetto “cool guy” would be more accurate (86). So, too, “the Jewish Gestapo men who remained alive with his rendering of “cmentarz Ewangelicki” as were very dangerous. Their eyes were penetrat- “Evangelical cemetery” (64) rather than ing and Jews pointed out by them were lost “Lutheran cemetery.” “Zgromadzenie without hope.”13 Chrobrych” should actually be Zgrupowanie Secret City devotes a lot of attention to the Chrobry II (174), thus the translation “gathering Polish Right but the author’s portrayal of Polish of the valiant” is not relevant. “Brody quarter- rightists is a two-dimensional stereotype pep- master brigade” should be Baon “Broda” and pered with factual errors. For example, Paulsson “Baon Gozdawy” should be Baon “Gozdawa” claims that the Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny (184). More seriously, Paulsson erroneously (and (National-Radical Camp or ONR) was “modeled sans citation) claims that the post-war Milicja on the Italian fascists” (xvii) which is not true Obywatelska (MO) was made up largely of pre- since ONR did not subscribe to the Duce princi- war and wartime policemen when in fact these ple. Nor did the Camp of Great Poland, disband- men were banned by communists from joining. ed before the war by the Sanacja government, co- He also falsely claims that during the pre-war found the Narodowe Si∏y Zbrojne (National era police did not oppose riots that attacked Jews Armed Forces or NSZ). The author also consis- when in fact police beat Christian demonstrators tently confuses the relationship of the NSZ to the at Przytyk, M∏awa, and Grodno, and killed Armia Krajowa (Home Army or AK). In fact the Christian demonstrators at Odrzywó∏ and NSZ subordinated itself to the AK in March 1944 Radzi∏ów, among other places (144-45). (save for the ONR faction). During the Warsaw Uprising, Paulsson claims that only individual The Warsaw Uprising members of the NSZ fought with the AK, which is patently false (167). Even the ONR subordinat- By far the most puzzling section of the book ed itself to the AK during the Warsaw Uprising.14 is the section that deals with the deaths of Jews This stands in contrast with the Paulsson’s during the Warsaw Uprising. At issue is whether laudatory treatment of the Polish communists, the AK killed Jews. The so-called Prosta Street whose miniscule armed contribution is almost massacre and a few smaller incidents which placed on a par with that of the AK (167). The claimed the lives of some 22 Jews and 4 non-Jews communists are even described as part of the (!) receive far more attention than the Hotel “Polish” left (39), when in fact the party rejected Polski affair (which claimed 3,500 Jewish lives) or the whole notion of Poland as independent state the liberation of some 350 Jews from the G´sia and sought subordination to the Soviet Union. Street concentration camp. (The meaning of this Although the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the right disproportional treatment becomes clear only comes in for much criticism, it is not clear that later.) Paulsson’s main source for this incident is the phony philo-Semitic rhetoric of the left saved a popular polemic by Micha∏ Cichy that appeared a single Jew. It certainly did not save the many in Gazeta Wyborcza in 1994. The article was wide- Jews who were killed by Polish communists and ly criticized by Polish scholars and is a very thin their “fraternal” Soviet masters. reed on which to rest weighty accusations.18 Paulsson mistakenly accuses the NSZ of As Paulsson shows the eyewitness accounts murdering Marceli Handelsman, now widely differ greatly in their particulars. Some of the believed to have been assassinated by a AK eyewitnesses conclude that the Chrobry II unit counterintelligence unit that had evidence impli- was responsible, a claim even Paulsson rejects as cating Handelsman as a communist agent (45).15 implausible. In fact, it was Chrobry II members Nor does the author seem aware (or perhaps who helped report the crime in the first place. It interested in) of recent research on the Polish is quite clear that the author did little independ- right’s reaction to the mass killing of Jews that ent investigation of this incident himself, basing has shown that there was a significant reduction his account largely on Cichy’s newspaper article. of anti-Semitic articles and an increase in pro- Had he done otherwise, he would have discov- Jewish pieces as well as documentation of the ered that the Chrobry II unit that he praises was German murder of Poland’s Jews.16 Finally the in fact a unit made almost entirely of members of

33 Nihil Novi

the NSZ, Miecz i P∏ug, and ONR! Moreover, it it is clear that survival was much less dependent was a unit that contained more than a dozen on the level of anti-Semitism in a particular soci- Jewish members, a fact confirmed by a recent ety than we have heretofore been led to believe. history of the unit and by Chaim Lazar.19 This, of In short, anti-Semitism is an imperfect and per- course, does not fit at all with polemical picture haps even poor predictor of Jewish survival and Paulsson presented in the book up to this point other factors need to be considered. of Polish “conservatives” who are supposedly The unfortunate polemics in Secret City may the reason why Polish culture is “sick” (182). be an indication that the author does realize how While the killing of any innocent civilian— unpopular this conclusion may be in some quar- Jewish or not—is a black mark on the record of ters and is perhaps a way of anticipating the crit- the Polish underground during the Warsaw icism that he is Polonophilic, a deadly faux pas in Uprising, as distinguished historian Teresa most Western academic circles. Nevertheless, the Prekerowa noted, almost all of these killings data are what they are. were attributable to common banditry. The polemics against Polish conservatives and more generally against Polish Catholics and Conclusions Catholicism found in Secret City would be embarrassing if applied to any comparable polit- As noted above, in general, historians of ical or religious group in any other country. For modern Poland, scholars of World War II in east- example, Paulsson repeatedly sneers at the central Europe, and historians of the Holocaust whole idea of Polish patriotism, essentially will welcome Secret City because of its basically equating it with a desire to kill Jews. He uses the solid research, its revision of received wisdom, term “brave and decent” Poles (173) to refer to and for what it says about the spurious compar- criminals who are accused of killing Jews. This isons that are still too often made by some approach, a sort of “colonialist” reading of Holocaust scholars between supposedly “good” Polish history, seems to be largely from Brian nations and “bad” ones. The book is well writ- Porter’s deeply flawed book When Nationalism ten, nicely produced by Yale University Press, Began to Hate.21 This is downright offensive to the and could be read with profit by graduate stu- memory of countless Poles who fought and died dents and professors alike. to defend their homeland from Nazi and Soviet The book’s one major problem (aside from tyranny. The author’s claim that some significant any of the lesser issues noted above), however, is body of scholars denies the existence or signifi- the author’s willingness to engage in polemics cance of Polish anti-Semitism makes for a fine that are not only not germane to the thesis of straw man, but in truth no such group exists. To Secret City but in some cases hinder it. In addi- the contrary, the problem, as the polemical side tion to the puzzling overemphasis on some inci- of Secret City makes clear, is a myopic obsession dents and the virtual ignoring of other seeming- with anti-Semitism that excludes every other ly more important ones, in the conclusion of the causal factor in the 1000-year history of Poland. book, Paulsson launches into a long and angry Far more serious and archival research polemic on behalf of Jan Gross’ book Neighbors. needs to be done on this aspect of Polish poli- What exactly this has to do with the subject at tics. The Right and Center Right were highly hand may be questioned by the casual reader complicated and resist this sort of simplistic and with reason. Some may also question why a generalization. One wonders how an author work proclaimed by some as virtually without who can find a diversity of behavior and atti- error even needs such a defense.20 tudes among Nazi functionaries cannot find a The basic facts uncovered by Paulsson— similar diversity on the Polish Right. Much of while by no means closed to challenge—are the rhetoric employed here, while rooted in ear- quite clear and they show that the picture of lier Stalinist-era propaganda and pre-war wartime Poland portrayed in most popular and Polish political conflicts passed on to a new scholarly accounts of the Holocaust is simply not generation, is also the result of many Western accurate. Barring acts of war, far more Jews were scholars being too close, personally and ideo- able to survive in Poland than had been believed. logically, to left and liberal opinion makers in Warsaw, despite an extremely harsh occupation, today’s Poland who have cynically used highly compares favorably to Holland and even charged issues (such as Jedwabne) as a way to Denmark in the record of hiding Jews. If we get votes. To treat this subject seriously, schol- accept—for the sake of argument—that Poles ars need to disentangle themselves from cur- are/were more anti-Semitic than the Dutch, then rent political forces on either side.

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poorly researched works that just happen to portray unpopular ethnic groups or ideas in More helpfully, Paulsson’s book refocuses the “correct” way. Purists are preferable to ideologues. our attention on the range of behaviors and atti- 7 To which this reviewer would only add—aside from a general “amen”—that apart from anti-assimilationist, many of the post-war views were shaped by activists (not only tudes (often contradictory) held by both Jews Jewish) who were leftist or sympathetic to the left and by the dominant left-wing world view prevalent in most academic and journalistic circles during the past several decades. and non-Jews during this period. He trenchantly Since Poles in the main have tended to be both anti-Soviet and anti-communist, they have suggests that the differences between resistance usually been viewed in very negative terms by leftist and left-friendly authors. and evasion have been too often blurred (7-11). 8 Sara Kraus-Kolkowicz, Dziewczynka z ulicy Mi∏ej: Albo Êwiadectwo czasu Holokaustu (Lublin: Agencja Wydawnictwo-Handlowa AD, 1995); Statement by Dr. hab. Mieczys∏aw The categories of resistance, collaboration, eva- Wieliczko, Institute of History, Marie Curie Sk∏odowska University, Lublin, in the author’s possession courtesy of Dr. Zygmunt Zieliƒski, Lublin. Needless to say, memoirs sion, and accommodation need to be further that have been fabricated or given extra embroidery do exist. elaborated. Over the course of the war and occu- 9 As Paulsson points out in the book, those who hid Jews did so for a variety of reasons, including money. Odds are that the ˚IH collection contains some doubtful Polish rescuer pation, a particular individual could fall into statements, but a wholesale rejection of these memoirs seems unfair. Doubtless, it is easi- er to deal with only the most altruistic of rescuers, but the strength of Secret City is that each of these categories at one time or another it attempts to deal with the norm and context rather simply stringing together extreme based on circumstances, the most telling of cases of dogs that did not bark in the night. 10 Crime, as I’ve argued elsewhere, was as close to an equal opportunity enterprise as one which were the policies of the occupiers. could find in times past. (See, for example, “Crime, Delinquency, Deviance, and Reform in Polish Chicago, 1890s–1940s” Fiedorczyk Lecture in Polish American Studies, Central In de facto rejecting Gross’ “new approach” Connecticut State University, New Britain, April 2001, soon to be published by the CCSU Polish Studies program.) One result of this was that Polish criminal argot was heavily to sources Paulsson has also refocused our atten- peppered with Yiddish and Hebrew loan words. See, for example, “It’s a Crime,” Forward, tion on the need to maintain our critical faculties Jan. 3, 2003 found at www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.01.03/arts3.htm 11 See for example, Jan Grabowski, “Szmalcownicy warszawscy, 1939–1942,” Zeszyty as scholars and not take short cuts that lead to Historyczne (Paris), no. 143 (2003): 85-117. politically useful but ultimately false and unsat- 12 See Jonas Turkov, C’etait ainsi: 1939-1943 la vie dans le ghetto de Varsovie (Paris: Austral, isfying scholarship. That the author falls short of 1995), 140. 13 See Ruth Altbeker Cyprys, A Jump for Life: A Survivor’s Journal from Nazi-Occupied Poland these ideals in a couple spots in the book is of no (New York: Continuum, 1997), 26, 39, 165–66. There are many Jewish memoirs that men- tion Jewish agents of the Nazis used to hunt down those in hiding. See also, Gary A. Keins, great moment. On the main subject of Jews in A Journey Through the Valley of Perdition (N.p. [United States]: n.p., 1985), 131-32, 145, 151, 154, 179; Irena Szereszewska, Memoirs from Occupied Warsaw, 1940–1945 (London: hiding he is solid and serious. Vallentine Mitchell, 1997), 214, 332, 337; Antoni Marianowicz, ˚ycie surowo wzbronione (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1995), 115; Michal Grynberg, Ksi´ga sprawiedliwych (Warsaw: Secret City is an important and path-break- Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1993), 379; Henryk Grynberg, Drohobycz, Drohobycz ing book that challenges many old assump- (Warsaw: W.A.B., 1997), 42. 14 See Sebastian Bojemski, Poszli w Skier Powodzi: Narodowe Si∏y Zbrojne w Powstaniu tions and will, it is hoped, provide a basis for Warszawskim (Warsaw: Glaukopis, 2002). Paulsson also mistakes the commander of further fruitful work on Jews and Poles under Chrobry II (176). (On key personnel in this unit, see ibid., 205–209). Other minor errors regarding the Polish Right include the author’s claim that Roman Dmowski never held the Nazi occupation. public office (38) and misidentifying Jan Mosdorf as merely the editor of the ONR’s peri- odical Prosto z mostu, when in fact he one of ONR’s principal leaders (253n31). Neither was Prosto z mostu the group’s paper. Rather, it was an independent cultural weekly with an increasingly radical nationalist slant. On Dmowski as a government minister, see Anthony Dr. John Radzi∏owski Polonsky, Politics in Independent Poland, 1921–1939 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 117. Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota 15 See Jerzy Janusz Terej, Na rozstajach dróg: Ze studium nad obliczem i modelem Armii Krajowej, 2nd revised and expanded edition (Wroc∏aw: Zak∏ad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 1980), 288; and Ryszard Nazarewicz, Armii Ludowej dylematy i dramaty (Warsaw: Oficyna 1 Alexander B. Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity (Lawrence: Drukarska, 1998), 218–24. Historian Tomasz Strzembosz, by contrast, lays the killing to an University Press of Kansas, 2003). extreme radical anti-Communist faction. See Tomasz Strzembosz, Rzeczpospolita podziem- na: Spo∏eczeƒstwo polskie a paƒstwo podziemne 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Krupski i S-ka, 2000), 317. 2 This thesis was first put forward by Paulsson in earlier journal articles, for example: The same seems to be true of the murders of two other Jewish AK officers wrongly attrib- Gunnar S. Paulsson, “The Rescue of Jews by Non-Jews in Nazi Occupied Poland,” Journal uted to the NSZ in Piotr Wróbel, Historical Dictionary of Poland, 1945–1996 (Westport, of Holocaust Education 7 (1998): 19–44; idem, “Demography of Jews in Hiding in Warsaw” Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998), 203. At the very least, there is significant disagree- Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry 13 (2000): 78–103. ment as to the assassins and the circumstances of the killings.

3 See my review essay on Michael Steinlauf’s Bondage to the Dead: “Bondage to the Holocaust,” 16 See Wojciech J. Muszynski, W walce o Wielkà Polsk´: Propaganda zaplecza politycznego Periphery: Journal of Polish Affairs 4/5 (1998/99): 50–55. One can see this tendency in early his- Narodowych Si∏ Zbrojnych (1939–1945) (Bia∏a Podlaska and Warsaw: tories, such as Simon Dubnov’s history of Jews in Poland and Russia. The current literature Rekonkwista/Rachocki i S-ka, 2000). tends—quite correctly—to emphasize the conditions of the Nazi occupation as the main fac- tor influencing Jewish actions. (Though frequently not Polish actions, which are more often 17 The Sword and Plow movement had solid anti-Nazi and anti-communist credentials until than not viewed as stemming from inherent Polish characteristics, i.e., anti-Semitism.) What the majority of its original leadership was destroyed by the Gestapo in 1941. In 1943 some is frequently lost in this case is a sense of the internal complexity of the Jewish community of its top leaders were suspected of collaboration but this was never true of the rank and and extent to which Jewish responses were driven by that complexity. file. See Aneta Wojcieszkiewicz, “Ideologia i dzia∏alnoÊç organizacji ‘Miecz i P∏ug’ w okre- sie okupacji, 1939–1945,” MA thesis, University of Warsaw, 1998. During the Warsaw 4 The author’s general point is well taken as a corrective to prevailing historiography and Uprising, Sword and Plow also subordinated itself to the AK under the aegis of the NSZ. as the bulk of the book shows he discuss the actions and networks of Polish rescuers in In fact, part of the Chrobry II unit that Paulsson later praises in the context of the Warsaw sufficient detail. Nevertheless, this emphasis may strike the casual reader as a bit like a Uprising, was made up of members of the Sword and Plow! Fighting with this group was drowning man who calls for help from the lifeguard. Clearly, by alerting the lifeguard to Zionist Revisionist and ex-Ghetto policeman Calel Perechodnik. See Sebastian Bojemski, his distress, he has “initiated” his own rescue, but it could hardly be called “self-rescue.” letter to the editor, Sarmatian Review, 22, no. 3 (Sept. 2002): 913–15. (On-line at The question of agency among populations under severe repression is always one that www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia) must be handled with care lest they somehow be made to seem responsible for that repres- sion. Nevertheless, to take a comparative case, slaves in the antebellum American South 18 See Tomasz Strzembosz, “Polacy-˚ydzi: Czarna karta ‘Gazety Wyborczej’,” Gazeta also were able to exercise agency and affect the conditions of their enslavement to a cer- Wyborcza, Feb. 5–6, 1994; Janusz Marszalec, Ochrona porzàdku i bezpieczeƒstwa publicznego w tain degree. See, for example, Jack E. Davis, “Changing Places: Slave Movement in the Powstaniu Warszawskim (Warsaw: Rytm, 1999). South,” The Historian 55, no. 4 (Summer 1993): 657–76. 19 See Bojemski, Sarmatian Review letter; idem, Poszli w Skier Powodzi, 235–52; Chaim Lazar, 5 The best secondary source in English on interwar Warsaw is Edward D. Wynot, Jr., Warsaw Muranowska 7: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Tel Aviv, 1966), 327. between the World Wars: Profile of a Capital City in a Developing Land, 1918–1939 (New York: Columbia University Press/EEM, 1983). The standard statistical compilation for Poland is 20 There is no point in rehashing the arguments for and against Gross’ book here, but it is Concise Statistical Year-Book of Poland, published in annual editions in Polish, French, and worth noting that even mild criticism of Neighbors has often resulted in wild and extreme English. A more detailed statistical breakdown of voting results and other data can be found personal attacks on the critics, not to mention efforts at censoring them. Any disagreement in Statystyka Polski (Warsaw: G∏ówny Urzàd Statystyczyny Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, with Gross’ conclusions or methodology has been systematically attacked as anti- 1919–38). Semitism. Jedwabne has now generated a massive and growing literature. Many of the basic facts stated by Gross in the book have been seriously challenged, in particular by the 6 See Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland results of the IPN investigation which concluded that he inflated the victim count by a fac- (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001), 139–40. The fatal problems of such an tor of at least four. approach have been discussed elsewhere and lie outside the scope of this review but it is worth noting that this approach seems to apply only to Jewish testimonies or to testi- 21 Brian Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Politics in Nineteenth- Century monies that agree with the author’s thesis (whether that author is Gross or someone else). Poland (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). See also my review in Kosmas: Polish testimonies and those not in agreement with an author’s thesis are free to be treat- Czechoslovak and Central European Journal 15, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 97–99; and see Marek Jan ed with the opposite or non-affirmative approach (e.g., automatically taken as false unless Chodakiewicz, “Nacjonalizm wyobra˝ony,” [Nationalism imagined] Mi´dzynarodowy proven otherwise). At page 18, Paulsson, unfortunately, attacks Raul Hilberg as a “purist” Przeglàd Polityczny, no. 4 (2003) (forthcoming). for insisting on verifiable sources and for writing the history of the Holocaust only from sources left by the perpetrators. Such criticism is unfair. It is far preferable to insist on rig- orous scholarship than to lower standards to the point where we accept without criticism 35 Nihil Novi

M.B. Szonert, World War II Through Polish ballots in Florida. The author through Danuta’s Eyes (New York and Boulder, CO: Columbia mouth is claiming that the will of the American University Press and East European people was disregarded in 2000 just as the will of Monographs, 2003). the Polish people had been disregarded for 50 years when the Communists ran the elections. Does this sort of modern day partisan preaching belong in a book titled World War II Through Polish Eyes? Szonert would have done much better, had she stuck with her family’s war-time experi- ences. Some of them are simply breathtaking. For instance, according to Danuta, at the onset of the war the Nazis scattered poisoned candy throughout Warsaw so that the children would get sick and die. Danuta’s younger brother, Zbyszek, stuffs his pockets with this candy but does not eat any because he wants to share it with his family after dinner. Other children get sick in the meantime, and Zbyszek’s parents hear about this, so they are able to warn Zbyszek before he eats any of the candy. This is a close call which leaves the family, as well as M. B. Szonert’s World War II Through Polish the reader, numb and speechless. Fact or fic- Eyes is part history textbook and part biography. tion? Another memorable episode which con- Basing herself on the recollections of Danuta veys the severity of life during the war occurs Fija∏kowska Binienda (nee Karpowicz), the when Danuta marries her first husband, Józef. author intertwines history lessons with the per- His sister comes to Warsaw for the wedding sonal experiences of the Karpowicz family dur- and has to smuggle in her gift, two wedding ing the Second World War in Poland. rings, by hiding them in her mouth. It is details Szonert provides the reader with the broad such as these that make this work a valuable historical background which is intended to com- addition to the collection of the personal plement and reinforce the personal aspect of the accounts of the war. story. The narrative jumps between the past and A professional historian may conclude that the present, a device intended as a hind-sight, the book tries to be too many things and tends to twenty-twenty commentary on the war. Many of lose its main message along the way. However, the present-day passages deal with conversa- to the non-professional, this work can also serve tions (or contrived conversations) between an as an adequate and accessible source of intro- elderly Danuta and her young grandson Konrad ductory-level information about the Second where the child supplies a string of statistics or a World War. A lay person can learn quite a bit long monologue on military strategy or political from Szonert. One comes away having a better developments. Is the boy wiser than his age sug- understanding of the political and military gests? Or does he serve as Deux ex machina? Is developments as well as a better sense of the this fiction or hard facts? This gimmick is bound impact the war had on Polish people. to confuse at least some readers. Confusion reigns further where the present Teresa M. Dudzik is depicted in such a detailed manner as to dis- tract the reader from the more interesting and pertinent personal tales of the war, which are the book’s strongest suit. On a few occasions, the analogies between the past and the present are more than strained. For instance, while dis- cussing the rigged Polish elections of 1946 which the Communists “won” by a landslide, Danuta draws spurious parallels to the contested US election of 2000 where the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped the hand count of the

36 Fall 2003

Alexander B. Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland: Alexander Rossino’s new work on the Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity. Lawrence: September Campaign is thus a welcome addition University Press of Kansas, 2003. to the literature, not so much for what it says as for the fact that someone who is not Polish is say- ing it, using sources that are primarily not Polish to do so. This is a sad commentary on the status of Polish studies in the United States. Rossino details German crimes in Poland committed by military and police formations against Polish prisoners of war and civilians (both Polish and Jewish). He shows that, first, anti-Polish and anti-Jewish attitudes and direc- tives came from Hitler himself and top Nazi leaders. They were accepted by virtually all German military commanders. It was an atti- tude that filtered down to ordinary soldiers both from official indoctrination and from the words and actions of superiors. German offi- cers who opposed the murder of POWs and civilians did so primarily out of concern for the impact of mass executions on the morale of It has long been understood that the German their own troops and the potential for creating invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 had a sig- chaos behind the lines rather than out of con- nificant brutalizing effect on the German armed cern for innocent lives or a desire to follow the forces and the German leadership and played an Geneva conventions. important role in making the Final Solution a The September Campaign differed from reality. Omer Bartov, for example, has demon- Operation Barbarossa only in the scale of the strated how Nazi ideology played an increasing- brutality and in more systematic and thorough ly important role in holding German units application of terror and killing. These were together, especially as combat losses mounted. largely the result of a German military apparatus The Nazi view of Jews and Slavs as subhuman that had had an additional year and a half of war informed the outlook of ordinary men in uni- to hone its killing skills. September Campaign— form, even if they did not always act on those far more than the milder invasion of France— views in a uniform manner. was the true precursor for the invasion of the For historians of Poland, this argument USSR and the training ground for the way Nazi seemed essentially correct except that any cur- armies would wage war as much against civil- sory study of the German invasion of Poland in ians as against opposing armies. The war against 1939 would seem to place the start of the bru- civilians was not militarily necessary, strictu talization of the Nazi armed forces in sensu, but was seen by German leaders as a vital September 1939, not June 1941. Yet, the German part of their war objectives. The brutality was assault on Poland was almost totally ignored by not incidental but was part and parcel of the historians of the Second World War and the Nazi regime. Holocaust. Most standard texts dismiss this key Rossino also demonstrates how the opening campaign of war in a paragraph or so September Campaign was an important (though and then move on to more familiar and popular overlooked) element in the development of the stories of German blitzkrieg in the West. plan to exterminate the Jews. The first use of Copious Polish sources on the September Einsatzgruppen occurred in 1939 and they were Campaign are for the most part simply ignored used both against Jews and Poles. More contro- in favor of fables about the Polish cavalry versial in some quarters will be Rossino’s well- charging panzers, the destruction of the Polish documented claim that Poles as well as Jews air force on the first day of the war, and other were systematically targeted by Nazi forces and myths, mostly created by Nazi propagandists. that anti-Polish rhetoric and propaganda was It would not be too great a stretch to suggest just as virulent as its anti-Jewish counterpart. that Western scholars are far more apt to treat Rossino documents with several independent Josef Goebbels as a reliable source than any- sources that in late August 1939, Hitler did thing Poles have written. indeed call for the campaign to destroy not

37 Nihil Novi

merely an independent Polish state, but for the strength as part of front-line and reserve infantry “elimination of living forces” (9–10), that is, the divisions. During the September Campaign, genocide of the Poles. (This quote has been there were local defense units, made up of mem- ignored or denied by some Holocaust scholars.) bers of patriotic and paramilitary organization, German forces were instructed to treat the Polish boy scouts, police, local citizens, retired soldiers people with “the greatest brutality and without too old to be called up, and reservists and mem- mercy” not merely because they were enemies of bers of the armed forces who had not made it to Greater Germany but because they were Poles. their units due to the confusion of the mobiliza- Rossino’s work is not without its problems. tion (delayed at Allied insistence) or who had The most glaring is the almost complete lack of become other detached from their unit in the any Polish-language sources. This is unfortunate course of the fighting. Like the ON, local defense because Polish-language literature on the forces were under normal army command and September Campaign and its immediate after- were not guerillas and should probably not even math is truly massive. Rossino is not alone in be termed irregulars. Some of these local units failing to use Polish sources, but this makes it no surely did not always wear full regulation uni- more excusable. It is simply not possible to write forms, although whether that put them outside a competent or complete history of World War II the rules of war is another matter. This is more or the Holocaust without Polish sources and it is than a minor detail of military history, since one past time that someone hold the feet of scholars of the major German justifications for the use of to fire in this matter. extreme measures against the civilian popula- Consulting Polish sources and memoirs tion was that it was actively assisting the Polish would have much more strongly reinforced armed forces. Rossino’s case. There are a number of omissions Another German justification for terror— as a result of this lack (for example, the reported and one Rossino does not deal with adequate- use of Polish civilians as human shields by ly—was the alleged mistreatment of the ethnic German forces). The most startling omission, German minority in western Poland. The author however, is that Rossino fails to mention the sys- uses almost entirely German sources to discuss tematically illegal activities of the German air the pro-Nazi uprising in Bydgoszcz that was force. The Luftwaffe bombed and strafed Polish crushed by Polish forces prior to the German civilian targets and there are multiple eyewitness conquest of the city. Since Josef Goebbels, accounts of German pilots deliberately targeting German nationalists who like to complain about refugees and even individual farmers working in “Polish atrocities” against peaceful Germans fields. Polish hospitals were properly and clearly have used this incident to great effect, more marked with the red cross symbol, making it recently attempting to draw an obscene moral especially easy for German bombers to attack parallel between these alleged Polish crimes and them, which happened time and again. Also tar- the mass murder of Poles and Jews from 1939 to geted were buildings of a charitable or cultural 1945. It needs to be stated clearly that Nazi and nature. Since in 1939 the Luftwaffe had not subsequent German claims about the mistreat- developed the kind of coordinated close-support ment of ethnic Germans in interwar Poland are of ground forces it would have later in the war, largely false. Nonetheless, there were a few cases it attacks in Poland were against prearranged where ethnic Germans who rose up in support of targets. Therefore, the targeting of civilians must the Nazi invasion and then surrendered were have been approved and discussed at a higher executed illegally. Even under the extreme cir- operational level. cumstances faced by Polish authorities at the Another problem is the author’s discussion time, such actions were unquestionably wrong of Polish militia units, namely the Obrona and deserving of condemnation. Narodowa (National Guard or ON). Rossino Nevertheless, there were important differ- calls the ON (wrongly spelled as “Obrana ences between the actions of Nazi and Polish Narodowa”) a “paramilitary” force, implying civil combatants, both in theory and practice. that it was irregular (63). This is not correct. The The ethnic German Nazis who rose up in revolt ON was a part of the regular armed forces and in Bydgoszcz on September 3, 1939 were taking received regular pay and training. Its members up arms against the legal government of Poland, were issued second-hand equipment but wore at a moment of the most extreme national crisis, uniforms. The ON was a part of the regular in a region under martial law. This was treason, Polish order of battle and individual ON units plain and simple. Under such circumstances, were designed to be deployed in battalion even the most democratic and law abiding gov-

38 Fall 2003

ernments might mete out harsh penalties to such On the night of October 19, 1944, the local traitors it catches red handed. So the fact that Jewish community was massacred in Ejszyszki pro-Nazi ethnic Germans were killed in the in the county of Lida, the Province of revolt and others subsequently executed (legal- Nowogródek, in formerly Polish Eastern ly) should not come as any surprise, let alone a Borderlands. The Home Army (AK) unit of cause for soul-searching or national apologies. Micha∏ Babul (“Gaj”) was supposed to have been By contrast, Polish civilians who took up arms responsible for the murder. Or at least this is against the Nazi invaders were doing so in how the story has been told and re-told in the defense of the legal government of Poland, West and in Poland, most recently by Professor against an invasion that was entirely illegal, and Yaffa Eliach. designed (as Rossino shows) to kill as many Now, we can learn about the tragedy from a Poles as possible. In a very real sense they were new publication, Ejszyszki, which deals with the attempting to defend their families, their homes, myth that “the crime” was perpetrated by the and their own lives. Although Rossino is not nec- “anti-Semitic AK.” A much needed and timely essarily favorable toward the ethnic German corrective, this two volume publication, edited Nazis fifth columnists, the distinction between by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, consists of an Polish and Nazi civil combatants and their sub- exhaustive introduction, witness testimonies, sequent fates is not made clear. records of the Soviet secret police (NKVD), and Despite its minor shortcomings and the lack scholarly essays about the events in Ejszyszki. of Polish sources (which is not so minor), Rossino According to Chodakiewicz, “The objective has given us a very fine book that deserves to be of the operation was manifold. First, the AK read and discussed by scholars of World War II, planned to capture official Soviet documents and modern Poland, and the Holocaust as well as by stamps from the local authorities. Second, the the educated public at large. Polish underground desired to secure supplies from the local cooperative. Third, the freedom Dr. John Radzi∏owski fighters prepared a strike against the Soviet terror apparatus and military in Ejszyszki. Undoubtedly, the Poles hoped to exploit the ele- ment of surprise to eliminate their Communist adversaries or at least to neutralize them for the duration of the action. The AK hit squads had the Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, ed., Ejszyszki: exact addresses of the quarters of the Soviet per- Kulisy zajÊç w Ejszyszkach: Epilog stosunków pol- sonnel. The plan was to capture them quietly one sko-˝ydowskich na Kresach, 1944-1945: by one. The most important task was to kidnap Wspomnienia, dokumenty, publicystyka [Ejszyszki: an officer of the Red Army counterintelligence The Background to the Events in Ejszyszki: An (“Smersh” – Smert’ shpionam, Death to spies) for Epilogue to Polish-Jewish Relations in the interrogation and to secure his archive.” We learn Eastern Borderlands, 1944-1945: Recollections, that the insurgent targeted the militia post, the Documents, Essays] (Warszawa: Fronda, 2002), civil government building, the local cooperative- 2 volumes. tannery, food warehouses, and “the residences housing the Soviet police and military personnel as well as real and alleged collaborators their eth- nic origin notwithstanding, including those among the Jewish population.” Chodakiewicz explains that “the operation unfolded according to the plan. In general, the AK squads managed to fulfill their objectives. They encountered serious resistance only during the attempt to seize the Smersh officer, a captain. The officer was billeted in the house of Moshe Sonenson, who served in the local outfit of the auxiliary Soviet militia, the so-called istrebitelnye batal’ony of the NKVD. Aside from Sonenson and the captain, there were also at least two other armed men inside: a seargant of the Smersh and another local red militiaman, Alter Micha∏owski.

39 Nihil Novi

The occupants resisted the assault squad of the Tadeusz M. P∏u˝aƒski AK. Consequently, two Soviets were killed but A different, Polish-language version of this not on the premises, including later the Smersh review is posted at http://mazowsze.k- officer, who was captured. Unfortunately, dur- raj.com.pl/104888738483247.shtml ing the firefight a Polish woman was wounded Translated and edited by TD and two Jewish bystanders were killed acciden- tally: a mother and her infant son, Zippora and Chaim Sonenson.” The survivors included Moshe Sonenson 1 and his 7 /2 year old daughter Sheinele (Sonia) Sonenson, future Yaffa Eliach. It was she who, Briefly on Books: having emigrated to the US, wrote There Once Was a World, her chronicle of the shtetl. In March 2003, The Brief Sun by Robert Unfortunatelly, the chronicle became the main Ambros (1st Books, 2002) won First Place in source of the false version of the events where international Writer’s Digest competition. A the Home Army killed Jews allegedly for anti- self-published novel, The Brief Sun tells the Semitic reasons. story of the Polish Free Forces in the West, Eliach’s tale has been challenged by both many of them erstwhile Gulag slaves, who – Polish and Jewish scholars. Significantly, after they bled on the battlefields of the Second Professor Israel Gutman of Yad Vashem wrote: World War – were betrayed ignomously and “I have no sympathy for the author. She is not an abandoned by the Allies. The novel can be authority on the Holocaust. We should not close ordered at http://www.thebriefsun.com and our eyes to the fact that the AK units in the Wilno http://www.1stbooks.com/cgi-bin/1st?part- region fought against the Soviet partisans for ~ | ~ | ~ Poland’s freedom. Therefore the Jews, who hap- ner 1st type 6 Data1 9656

pened to be on the opposite side, died at the hands of the soldiers of the AK as enemies of A posthumous collection of Gustaw Herling Poland and not as Jews.” Grudziƒski’s prose, The Noonday Cemetery and The objections of Gutman and other scholars Other Stories, translated by Bill Johnson, was to Eliach’s version can be reduced to two basic published by New Directions in May 2003. In observations. First, Yaffa Eliach depicted the September 2003 Alfred A. Knopf brought out tragedy of her own family in a highly subjective Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud’s A Question way, which is understandable in a memoir. of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten However, once this type of a testimony becomes Heroes of World War II. In October, Macmillan the only “politically correct” rendition of the shipped out the much-awaited Rising ’44 by events, then we have a serious problem. To Norman Davies.

invoke this source only has nothing to do with scholarly impartiality and is highly tendentetious. In 2003 Leopolis Press published two collec- Second, and more importantly, Eliach took tions of essays with contributions by scholars the events of October 19, 1944, out of their con- affiliated with the KoÊciuszko Chair and their text. She ignored completely the complex back- colleagues: Poland’s Transformation: A Work in ground of the situation in the Eastern Progress, edited by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Borderlands since the Soviet invasion and occu- John Radzi∏owski, and Dariusz To∏czyk, and pation of September 1939. Let us remember that Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism: The these territories experienced several occupa- Borderlands of Europe in the 19th and 20th tions, in succession, by the Soviets, Lithuanians, Century, edited by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz Germans, and once again the Soviets. All this and John Radzi∏owski. Both publications have influenced the developments in the area and been praised profusely by several authorities impacted the attitudes of the local population, in the field. including Polish-Jewish relations. All this is missing from the standard tale of the events as told by Eliach. Witness testimonies, interroga- tion records, and scholarship and punditry assembled by Chodakiewicz in the Ejszyszki rec- tify this grave shorcoming and should be the final word on the case.

40 Fall 2003

According to Dr. Zbigniew Brzeziƒski of the Commenting on Spanish Carlism and Polish Center for Strategic and International Studies, Nationalism, one of the most eminent American “Poland’s Tranformation provides a comprehensive historians Eugene Genovese stated that “As as well as incisive overview of the extraordinarily every schoolboy knows, Europe’s Catholic Right difficult and historically unprecedented process has consisted of reactionaries who began in the of transforming an increasingly corrupt and service of residual feudal landowners and decayed totalitarian system into a modern democ- ended in support of big capital’s exploitation racy.” Dr. John Lenczowski of the Institute of and oppression of the masses. As ideological World Politics averred that “this extremely useful fairy tales go, this is no worse than many others volume explains the essential elements of the that today pass for history on campus. Still, the post-communist political transition in Poland. Its totalitarian horrors of the twentieth century authors convey not only the basic necessary infor- proved prescient the warnings of the Catholic mation of recent history but more importantly the Traditionalist Right about the consequences of cultural and ideological underpinnings that can radical democracy and cultural nihilism. These be captured only by authorities who have devel- splendid essays, as readable as they are scholar- oped over a lifetime that special sixth sense for ly, launch a long-overdue assessment of vital detecting the elusive and unquantifiable soul of a political events.” Professor Ewa M. Thompson of country.” Radek Sikorski of the American Rice University observed that “the fall of com- Enterprise Institute explained that “Defying the munism facilitated growth of research in areas stereotypes of their national character, Poles car- previously difficult to access. One such area is ried out two peaceful revolutions in the span of Polish interest in Spain; another, the history of one generation: first, the self-limiting movement the Catholic Right in Europe. This pioneering of Solidarity, which undermined the legitimacy of volume explores both narratives and succeeds in Communism, and then a negotiated transfer of showing that they are related. The similarities power from Communism to free-market democ- have to do with the symmetrical positions of racy. Today, while Poland is seen as a success Poland and Spain as frontiers of Europe against story and is joining political and economic clubs invasions from Islam. The rest of Europe seldom of the democratic West, Poles themselves seem noticed except in major victories, such as that of downcast. Is social anomie a price worth paying Don Juan at Lepanto in 1571 or that of John for a successful transformation? In making moral Sobieski at Vienna in 1683. The present collection compromises with an outgoing tyranny, can you of papers explores recent history developing avoid cynicism and disappointment with democ- against this background.” racy? We should be grateful to the authors and editors of this thoughtful volume for asking ques- tions which remain relevant for that uncomfort- ably large part of humanity that still lives under totalitarian or authoritarian regimes.”

41 Nihil Novi

Professor Wojciech Roszkowski was born in 1947. He graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics with a Ph.D. in economic history (1978). Between 1985 and 1986 Professor Roszkowski was visiting researcher at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. In 1988 he was a Wilson Center Fellow, and in the following year a visiting professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. From 1990 to 1993 he served as vice- president of the Warsaw School of Economics in charge of restructuring the university. Between 1994 and 2000 Professor Roszkowski held the post of Director of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (ISP PAN), a position from which he resigned to take over the KoÊciuszko Chair. He supervised the Chair until 2002, when he returned to Poland. His main field of expertise is contemporary history. Prof. Wojciech Roszkowski

Pro Memoriam: In this section we would like to remember special individuals who contributed significantly to American Polish, Polish émigré, and Polish endeavors. Most of them came from “The Great Generation” and, in many ways, their biographies are rather similar. Although we cannot possibly honor all those who passed away, we have listed at least some of The Ancient Ones who have recently left us.

Antoni Arkuszewski (1909-2002) came from the Towarzystwo Ziemiaƒskie), as one of the leading landed nobility. He graduated from the Warsaw lights behind its historical section. He was Polytechnic, majoring in hydro-engineering. buried in the family crypt in Stara B∏otnica. Involved with the resistance, he was seized by the Nazis as a hostage in June 1940 and spent Lidia Cio∏koszowa (1902-2002) was born in the almost five years as a prisoner of the assimilated Jewish Kahn family of Tomaszów Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Mazowiecki. She majored in Polish literature Arkuszewski returned to Poland in the fall of and history at the Jagiellonian University, where 1945 and participated in the effort to rebuild the she also received her Ph.D. Cio∏koszowa joined country. He worked as an engineer on waterway the Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia projects in Gi˝ycko, Wroc∏aw, and Warsaw. He Socjalistyczna – PPS) in 1920 and devoted herself also headed a department at the Ministry of to work in the area of education. She was active Agriculture and served on the board of the in Tarnów and Cracow, in particular. In 1934 she hydroengineering periodical Gospodarka Wodna was elected to the Main Board of the PPS. (Water Economics). Arkuszewski was active Following the Nazi invasion, she fled to the with the Club of the Catholic Intelligentsia in West. In France and England she assisted her Warsaw, assisting the human rights movement husband, Adam Cio∏kosz, who was one of the and “Solidarity.” After 1989, he became involved leading émigré politicians of the Polish govern- with the Polish Landowners Association (Polskie ment-in-exile. In 1949 she became a member of

42 Fall 2002

the ruling free Polish émigré bodies in London: Gan-Ganowicz became a star of a popular docu- the Political Council, the Council of National mentary film about his life: Pistolet do wynaj´cia Unity, and the National Council. Upon her hus- (A Gun for Hire). He also penned a highly enter- band’s death, Lidia Cio∏koszowa was elected as taining memoir, Kondotierzy [The Mercenaries] the chair of the PPS in 1978. She supported the (London: Polska Fundacja Kulturalna, 1989). Committee to Defend Workers (Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR) and “Solidarity.” After 1989, Leda Giedroyc (1919-2002) was an Italian who she refused to allow anyone who wanted to became enmeshed in Polish affairs. In 1966 she cooperate with the post-Communists to appro- married Henryk Giedroyc, the brother of Jerzy, priate the name of the PPS. Among her many the founder and editor-in-chief of the Polish émi- articles and works, the most valuable are gré periodical Kultura of Paris. Leda worked for Publicystyka polska na emigracji, 1940-1960 (Polish Givenchy. She was not directly involved in the émigré punditry) and Zarys dziejów socjalizmu political and cultural activities of Kultura but she polskiego (A Sketch of the History of Polish was prominent in the social life at the Maisons- Socialism), which she co-authored with her hus- Laffitte, where the editorial board was head- band. Cio∏koszowa left a memoir, Spojrzenie quartered. Following Jerzy’s death, Leda and wstecz (Looking back), which was culled from Henryk applied themselves diligently to assist her conversations with Andrzej Friszke. She died Zofia Hertz, who succeeded the deceased in London. founder as editor-in-chief. Leda Giedroyc died and was buried in Paris. Rafa∏ Gan-Ganowicz (1932-2002) was born in Warsaw, a scion of Polish nobility of Tartar ori- Father Micha∏ Marian Zembrzuski (1908-2003) gin. His mother was killed by Nazi bombs in was born in a village near M∏awa, northern 1939. His father joined the underground Home Mazovia. Throughout his life, he devoted him- Army and fell fighting in the Warsaw Uprising self to the Marian cult. Zembrzuski entered a (August-October 1944). Rafa∏ Gan-Ganowicz Pauline seminary in Cz´stochowa in 1921 and participated in the battle as well. Later, he hid later graduated from St. Anna’s high school in out in Warsaw and its environs until the entry of Cracow. In 1934 he was ordained a priest and the Soviets. Subsequently, Gan-Ganowicz joined dispatched to Hungary: first Budapest and then an anti-Communist underground youth group Pésc, where he built his first church and and fought against the Soviet proxy regime until monastery. As the Pauline provincial, he estab- 1950. When the secret police closed in on him, he lished the order’s outposts in Jakab, Hegy, Palos- escaped to the West. In Germany, after a stint in Szentkut and Soltvadkert. Following the Nazi the US-backed Polish guard companies, Gan- invasion of Poland, Father Micha∏ worked with Ganowicz was trained as a commando by the Polish refugees. He served as an informal laison Americans. He also attended a NATO officers’ between the refugee community and the school, and General W∏adys∏aw Anders commis- Hungarian authorities, including in particular sioned him a lieutenant of the Free Polish Forces József Antal. He administered to about 150,000 in Exile. After 1956, Gan-Ganowicz worked as a Christian and Jewish refugees interned in 120 literature teacher in Polish émigré schools in refugee camps and elsewhere. In 1942, the Nazi France. In 1962, after the call to arms by Moses diplomatic pressure forced the Hungarian gov- Chombe, he volunteered to fight the Soviet- ernment to impose a house arrest on the Pauline backed revolutionaries in the former Belgian provincial. After the German take-over of Congo. From 1964 until their victory, he served Hungary in March 1944, Father Zambrzuski as an advisor with the anti-Communist insur- found himself on the most-wanted list and went gents in Yemen. In the mid-1980s Gan-Ganowicz into hiding. He re-emerged under the Soviet was to head a Foreign Volunteer Legion, com- occupation but avoided arrest and returned to posed mostly of Poles, to fight the Soviets in his monastery in Pésc. In 1948, he fled Hungary Afghanistan. However, the American sponsors and traveled to Rome, where Bishop Józef changed their mind and the plan was scrapped. Gawlina appointed him the chief of the Polish Meanwhile, Gan-Ganowicz supported under- section of the Papal Committee to Assist ground Solidarity and worked as a journalist for Refugees. In 1950 Father Micha∏ established a Radio Free Europe. He returned to Poland after homeless shelter for Polish refugees at the Irish the fall of Communism and cooperated closely College. However, in 1951, he emigrated to the with the student Republican League and various United States with a mission to introduce the Pi∏sudskite paramilitary youth organizations. Pauline order. In 1953, he and other brothers set-

43 Nihil Novi

tled in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Thus, the minister of the Polish government-in-exile. American Cz´stochowa was born. It became an Meanwhile, in Poland, Nazi terror forced his important religious, cultural, and political center son Marian and his wife Cecylia to go into hid- modeled closely on its Polish counterpart and ing. In June 1942 they were apprehended by the the teachings of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyƒski. Gestapo and tortured. Soon after, the under- Father Zembrzuski ran a bi-lingual periodical ground managed to free Marian Miko∏ajczyk (Jasna Góra – Bright Mountain), a radio program, from the Lublin Castle jail and smuggle him out and a library at the monastery. The basilica of to Hungary. In October 1943, through Romania, Our Lady of Cz´stochowa at Doylestown Bulgaria, Turkey, and Egypt, he reached (designed by Jerzy Szeptycki, a Home Army sol- London and rejoined his father. Marian dier from Lwów) was consecrated in 1966 to Miko∏ajczyk attended Harrow and Cambridge mark the millennium of Poland with about University, graduating with a BA in economics 130,000 faithful in attendance, including in 1948. The same year he emigrated to the President Lyndon B. Johnson. Later, President United States and settled in the Washington, Ronald Reagan visited the monastery which DC, area. Miko∏ajczyk worked as an economist became a major pilgrimage site for Americans of first in the Department of Agriculture (1956 to all faiths. His work accomplished, Father 1964) and later in the Civil Aeronautics Board Zembrzuski briefly moved to a Pauline until his retirement in 1981. He was active in the monastery in Kittanning, near Pittsburgh (1975- Polish émigré and Catholic circles and kept the 1980) and then to New York, where he was legacy of his father alive. appointed to the leadership of the Polish and Slavic Center, running its charity until 1993. Boles∏aw Wierzbiaƒski (1913-2003) was born in Upon his retirement, he became the chaplain of Bachorz near Brzozów. He joined the boy scouts the Union of Veterans of the Polish Army. He while at Jan Kochanowski High School and was active in the Polish American Congress. eventually rose to the top of the organizational Father Zembrzuski took ill suddenly during his ladder as a deputy inspector of all Polish scout- visit to Hungary; he returned to die at ing groups abroad. He became involved with the Doylestown. His memoir remains unpublished. liberal Pi∏sudskite Union of Polish Democratic Youth and was eventually elected its national Henryk Jab∏oƒski (1907-2003) was a renegade chairman (1937-38). Having studied at the socialist who joined the Communists. In 1939 he Jagiellonian University and later at the fought the Nazis in Poland; then, he fled to the University of Warsaw, Wierzbiaƒski graduated West and as a soldier of the Free Polish Forces with a degree in law and economics in 1938. He was dispatched to battle the Germans at Narvik, further augmented his knowledge at the School Norway. Afterwards, he joined the resistance in of Political Science (Szko∏a Nauk Politycznych), France. Jab∏oƒski returned to Soviet-occupied and as a fellow of the Council of Europe in Poland in 1945. He became a journalist and a Strasbourg (1954-55), and Columbia University professor of history at the University of Warsaw. (1957-60). Media and journalism became his pas- Appointed to the puppet leadership of the Polish sion early on. He contributed to the scout paper Socialist Party (1946-48), Jab∏oƒski was instru- Na tropie (On the trail). He worked for the Polish mental in forcibly submitting it to a merger with Radio, Polska Agencja Telegraficzna (Polish the Communist party which henceforth dubbed Telegraphic Service), Iskra information agency, itself the Polish United Workers Party. He and Polska Agencja Prasowa Âwiatpol (Polish Press became a member of the party’s Central Agency of the Union of Poles Abroad). Committee. In a government career that spanned Following the German invasion, Wierzbiaƒski several decades, he served as the minister of joined the secret radical-liberal organization Zet education (1966-72) and the chairman of the (1939-46). He fled to the West and worked for the Council of State. In the former capacity Jab∏oƒski Polish government-in-exile’s propaganda presided over the anti-Semitic purge at the uni- department. In France, he edited Listy do Polaków versities in 1968. In the latter post he rubber- (Letters to the Poles) and Free European Press stamped the imposition of martial law in 1981. Service. His dispatches were broadcast by the Jab∏oƒski died in Warsaw. BBC. After his escape to England in June 1940, Wierzbiaƒski also ran the Âwiatpol news service Marian Miko∏ajczyk (1923-2003) was born in and press. It supplied information about Poland Poznaƒ as a son of a prominent populist politi- and its legal authorities as well as published cian, Stanis∏aw, who eventually became prime Polish authors. In 1944, he co-founded

44 Fall 2002

“Niepodleg∏oÊç i Demokracja” (NID – illegal instructions in Poland’s history, politics, Independence and Democracy) and represented and society. He was also involved with the it on the National Council and the Council of Committee to Defend Workers. In 1978 National Unity of the émigré Poles. In addition, Karpiƒski emigrated to the West for medical Wierzbiaƒski headed the Department of reasons but remained intimately involved in Information of the Executive of the National Polish affairs. He settled in the Washington, DC, Union and chaired the Union of Journalists of the area. Together with his wife Irena Lasota, he Polish Republic (1948-56). He also was elected as actively supported the human rights movement the top officer of the International Federation of and “Solidarity” in Poland. Through the Free Journalists of East and Central Europe. Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe Meanwhile, Wierzbiaƒski began cooperating (IDEE), which Karpiƒski co-founded in New with Radio Free Europe and the Voice of York in 1985, he reached out to other captive America. He moved to the US in 1956 and settled peoples of the Soviet Bloc, including the in New York, where he ran the Foreign News Cubans. He was also involved with Social Service that became a prime source of informa- Democrats, USA, and in 1989 was on their tion about the Soviet Bloc (1958-65). He also National Advisory Council. He returned home worked as a correspondent at the United after the fall of Communism. In 1997, he became Nations. Wierzbiaƒski continued his involve- a professor at the University of Warsaw. His ment with the Captive Nations, joined the board youthful leftism increasingly yielded to libertar- of Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, and ian and conservative attitudes. An author of served as a director of the Polish American over a score of books, in English Karpiƒski pub- Congress. To counter Communist infiltration, he lished Countdown: The Polish Upheavals (1982), participated in the activities of the Federation of Poland Since 1944: A Portrait of Years (1995), and Free Journalists and the American Newspaper Causality in Sociological Research (2002). Guild. In 1971 he co-founded three papers: Nowy Dziennik (The New Daily), Przeglàd Polski (The Henryk de Kwiatkowski (1924-2003) was born Polish Review), and the New Horizon, and in Poznaƒ. After his parents and four syblings worked practically until the end of his life as were killed by the invading Nazis, he fled the their editor-in-chief (1971-2000) and publisher country for the West. Kwiatkowski volunteered (1971-2003). Wierzbiaƒski actively assisted the for the Royal Air Force in Great Britain and dissident movement and “Solidarity” in Poland. served with the Polish bomber wing. After the Many independent Polish journalists interned at war, he worked around the world, including as his Nowy Dziennik. After 1989, he supported the an aeronautical engineer in Canada. liberal orientation in Poland. Kwiatkowski eventually became a successful entrepreneur selling surplus aircraft in the Third Jakub Karpiƒski (1940-2003) was born in World. He is best remembered as an avid horse Warsaw and enrolled at the University there, breeder and racer in the United States, where he majoring in sociology and philosophy. As an settled in 1957. Kwiatkowski claimed that the assistant professor, he became involved with the prefix “de” before his name derives from a title leftist part of the dissident movement and co- bestowed on his family by Napoleon. organized protest actions during the anti- Semitic campaign orchestrated by the Witold Su∏kowski (1943-2003) was a dissident Communist party in March 1968. Karpiƒski was poet and journalist. In 1977, Su∏kowski co-found- fired from his job, briefly arrested, and released ed, together with Tadeusz Walendowski and Jacek only to be rearrested after a few months when Bierezin, the underground literary periodical Puls. new charges were filed against him. Because he In September 1980 in ¸ódê, he began editing the was involved in smuggling free literature from unofficial journal SolidarnoÊç z Gdaƒskiem. His first the West to Poland, the Communists threatened volume of poetry, Szko∏a Zdobywców (The School of to try him for espionage, which carried a death Conquerors), was published in Paris. During mar- penalty, during the so-called mountaineers trial tial law in 1982, Su∏kowski emigrated to the US (proces taterników). Almost uniquely, Karpiƒski and settled in the Washington, DC, area, where he refused to testify and incriminated no one. He worked as a journalist for Radio Free Europe. served over two years of his three year sentence. Su∏kowski contributed periodically to Voice of Upon his release, he continued his dissident America Digest and the émigré press, including activities, including as a co-founder of the so- Nowy Dziennik (New York). He died during a visit called “Flying Universities,” which provided to his native city of ¸ódê, Poland.

45 Nihil Novi

Irena Gut Opdyke (1922-2003) was born in Europe, the émigré WiadomoÊci (London) and Kozienice but her parents moved to Che∏m, Kultura (Paris). Danilewicz-Zieliƒska laborious- Radom, and Suchedniów. At 16, she entered a ly recovered the traces of Polish matters in nursing school in Radom. In September 1939 as a Portuguese culture and literature. She excelled at nurse-volunteer she was attached to a Polish literary criticism and wrote a few works of her army unit fighting against the Nazis and the own, including Blisko i daleko [Close and far] Soviets. Taken prisoner by the latter, she was (1953), Dom [Home] (1956), PierÊcieƒ z maltreated but escaped from her captors and Herkulanum i p∏aszcz pokutnicy [The Ring from crossed over to the Nazi-occupied part of Herculanum and the coat of the penitent] (1960), Poland. Soon, Gut Opdyke was arrested by the Próba przywo∏aƒ [An attempt to call] (1992), and Germans and pressed into slave labor in a muni- Szkice o literturze emigracyjnej [Sketches on émi- tions factory. Having fallen ill, she was reas- gré literature] (1978, 1999). Her recollections as signed as kitchen help at a pension for German told to W∏odzimierz Paêniewski were published military personnel. She took advantage of her as Fado o moim ˝yciu [Fado about my life] (2000). relatively privileged position to shelter secretly 12 Jewish fugitives there. She also smuggled Professor (Father) Micha∏ Poradowski (1913- other Jews out of the ghetto with the assistance 2003) was born in Niedêwiady near Kalisz. He of a priest and another girl. When her German was an active scout and a member of the All- supervisor, Major Eduard Rugemer discovered Polish Youth. Upon graduating from the Tadeusz the fugitives, Irena agreed to become his mistress KoÊciuszko high school in Kalisz, he enrolled at to guarantee his acquiescence in her “crime.” In the Catholic Seminary in W∏oc∏awek. Poradowski early 1944 Irena fled with the Jews into the coun- entered priesthood in 1936 and immediately com- tryside. She also joined the Home Army but lost menced to study law at the University of Warsaw. her Polish guerrilla fiancé who fell in one of the Between 1939 and 1942 he served in the under- skirmishes in the spring of 1944. Following the ground National-Popular Military Organization entry of the Red Army into central Poland, Gut (NLOW). Afterward, he joined the National Opdyke was arrested by the Communists and Armed Forces (NSZ). Active in their political lead- tortured for her underground involvement. She ership, Captain (Father) “Benedykt” headed the escaped from jail and was hidden by the very office for the military chaplaincy and edited the Jewish family she had saved during the clandestine Lux Mundi, Poland’s only secret publi- Holocaust. Later, her Jewish friends helped to cation for the clergy. In August 1945 along with smuggle Irena out of Poland, and she found her- some others of the top brass of the NSZ, self at a refugee camp in Germany. In 1948 she Poradowski escaped from Poland and reported in emigrated to the United States. Gut Opdyke first Murnau, where he was admitted to the Polish settled in New York but eventually moved to Armed Forces in the West to continue his work as Yorba Linda, California. In 1995 she was recog- a military chaplain. Upon demobilization, nized as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem and Poradowski moved to France. He enrolled at a wrote a popular memoir – In My Hands: Memoirs university in Paris and enventually earned three of a Holocaust Survivor (1999). doctorates: in theology, law, and sociology. In 1949, he emigrated to Chile and became a lecturer Maria Ludwika Danilewicz-Zieliƒska (1907- at Catholic universities in Santiago and 2003) was born in the Markowski family in Valparaiso. Poradowski was an expert in Marxism Aleksandrów Kujawski near Kalisz. Early on, and edited a quarterly, Estudios sobre el Comunismo. she joined a girl scout troop. After attending a He was also elected chairman of the Union of high school in W∏oc∏awek, she majored in Polish Poles in Chile and ran their monthly publication, literature at the University of Warsaw. Upon Polak w Chile (A Pole in Chile). During the Allende graduating in 1929, Danilewicz-Zieliƒska found presidency, he was fired from his job and earned employment with the National Library in his living as a cab driver. Poradowski became Warsaw. She fled Poland in September 1939 and close with some of the leading lights of General arrived in France. In 1943 she reached England, Augusto Pinochet’s junta. Upon his return to where she was given an assignment with the Poland in 1993, he became involved with Catholic Polish Library in London, a post Danilewicz- traditionalist, conservative, and nationalist circles. Zieliƒska held until her retirement in 1972. The Among others, he was appointed an honorary following year she moved to Portugal, where she member of the Union of the Soldiers of the NSZ died. Throughout her life, she cooperated with a and cooperated with Fronda. He died in Wroc∏aw. number of British periodicals, Radio Free A life long opponent of Communism, Nazism, lib-

46 Fall 2003

eralism, and ecumenism, Poradowski is the author Izabella “Bibi” Wellisz (1934-2003) nee Jelita- of many works, including Katolickie Paƒstwo Gajewska was born in a landed noble family in Narodu Polskiego [A Catholic State of the Polish Warsaw. In September 1939, while her father Nation] (1943, 1997), Protestantyzacja KoÊcio∏a remained behind to fight, she and her brother Katolickiego [The Protestantization of the Catholic were spirited out of Poland by their American- Church] (1945), Teologia de la Liberacion (1974), born mother literarily under the German bombs. Marxismo en la teologia (1976), Karl Marx, su pen- Through Romania, they reached France, where samiento y su revolucion (1987), and Dziedzictwo the mother worked for the Polish Red Cross. rewolucji francuskiej [The Heritage of the French After the fall of France, the family fled to Revolution] (1990). Portugal and to the United States, where they settled in the Washington, DC, area in 1940. Alfred B. Wisniewski (1922-2003), who died in Following the Soviet occupation of Poland in Baltimore, is best remembered as an intrepid 1945, when her father perished under unclear crusader for the truth about the Katyƒ Forest circumstances, the family decided to remain in Massacre, where Stalin and his henchmen killed the US. Izabella attended a Methodist high thousands of Polish POWs. He served as secre- school in Washington, DC, and later earned a tary, president, and president emeritus of the graduate degree in art history. She lived abroad National Katyn Memorial Foundation, USA. quite a bit, including India and Thailand, which taught her appreciation for non-Western cul- Jan Rossman (1916-2003) came from a family of tures and eventually directed her interest toward Polish-German intelligentsia in Warsaw. His first native American art, folklore, and spirituality. childhood memory concerned a field trip with his Nonetheless, her home and heart were always engineer father who was in charge of building for- open to things Polish, in particular the activities tifications to stop the Bolshevik advance into of the KoÊciuszko Chair. Two major research and Warsaw in July 1920. In 1939 Jan Rossman gradu- writing projects of the Chair were finished ated from the Warsaw Polytechnic with a degree thanks to her hospitality in Santa Barbara. We in engineering. However, his life long passion are planning to name a research fellowship to was scouting. In the 1930s he became a scout commemorate her. leader and worked closely with Micha∏ Gra˝yƒski, a staunch Pi∏sudskite who headed the Jerzy Boniecki (1929-2003) was born in an Zwiàzek Harcerstwa Polskiego (Union of Polish assimilated family of Jewish-Polish intelligentsia Scouting). Rossman also joined the liberal techno- in Warsaw. His father was a member of the cratic pro-government Naprawa (Repair) group. Polish Socialist Party and, during the Nazi occu- During the Second World War Rossman served as pation, continued his socialist activities illegally, one of the top instructors of the underground drawing his son in. Jerzy also served as a soldier Szare Szeregi (Grey Ranks). Along with his wife of the Home Army. He lived in Communist Danuta, he also sheltered Jews at his ˚oliborz Poland until the end of the 1950s when, posted home. Rossman fought in the Warsaw Uprising of as an expert in Australia, Boniecki refused to 1944 and was awarded the coveted Virtuti return to Warsaw. Instead, he eventually became Militari Cross for gallantry. Having been liberated a successful businessman in his adopted home- from a Nazi POW camp, he briefly remained in land. In the 1970s he co-founded the Australian the West but returned to Poland in 1946. Committee for Human Rights in the Soviet Afterward he spearheaded the drive to rebuild Union and Eastern Europe. Later, he endowed Warsaw but by 1950 he felt the brunt of Stalinist and supervised the Polcul Foundation to assist terror. Official persecution and chicanery contin- dissidents and charity activists in Poland. ued after 1956, when Rossman assisted in the re- Boniecki left a substantial grant to Polcul to birth of the scouting movement and involved ensure its functioning well into the future. himself with the dissident milieu, in particular the Home Army veterans. He was fired from his job in 1968 and spent most of the 1970s teaching at a university in Zaire. Later, he assisted under- ground “Solidarity”. After 1989, in his retirement, Rossman was a very critical observer of the Polish political scene but continued working with the scouting movement, mentoring the young.

47 Nihil Novi

Dear Friends,

We would like to thank you for your generous contributions that made our travel, research, and writing possible. In addition to cash gifts, some of you extended your hospitality to us during our research trips and writing projects. This saved the KC a great deal of expense on room and board and travel. All your gifts are greatly appreciated.

Thank you to:

Gifts of $20,000.00 Hospitality gifts: Mr. Ron Trzcinski Eugene Bak, Cleveland, OH The Rosenstiel Foundation Dorota and Pawe∏ Chudzicki, Chicago, IL Lady Blanka Rosenstiel Andrzej Czuma, Chicago, IL Patty and Guy de Gramont, Gifts of $500.00 and more Santa Barbara, CA Dr. Aldona Wos Izabella Wellisz, Santa Barbara, CA Suzanne Siskel and Peter Gajewski, Gifts of $100.00 and more Santa Barbara, CA Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Banas Jan M. Ma∏ek, Torrance, CA Mr. and Mrs. Stanley and Cecelia Yeskolski Wendy and Christopher Smiekel, Mr. Boles∏aw C. Biega Tampa, FL Shirley M. Smiekel, Washington, DC Gifts of less than $100.00 Nadia and Tadzio Wellisz, Los Angeles, CA Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Sowinski Zofia and Zdzis∏aw Zakrzewski, Foster City, CA

You made our travel, research, lecturing, and writing possible. You also facilitated visits by fascinating guests who attracted student and community attention to Polish studies. Thanks to you we were able to bestow scholarships and host young promising scholars in the making. Last but not least, the resources you provided, including films and books, assisted us greatly in our didactic work. We truly appreciate all your assistance and hope that you will continue to support Polish studies, including the publication of Nihil Novi. Please send your tax deductible gifts payable to:

The KoÊciuszko Chair American Institute of Polish Culture 144079th Street Causeway Suite 117 Miami, FL 33141 Phone: (305) 864-2349 Fax: (305) 865-5150 E-mail: [email protected]

48 Thermos Termos

It’s hard to say it straight, Trudno to tak powiedzieç Plainly without a tremble, Po prostu, bez dr˝enia w g∏osie, my heart’s burning love for you ˚e mi∏oÊç w sercu goràcà hidden like in a thermos Schowa∏em, jakby w termosie

When you return – (the world is round, Gdy wrócisz – (Êwiat jest okràg∏y, Hasten around it faster, Obiegnij go jak najchy˝ej, The farther you are, Im dalej b´dziesz ode mnie, The closer you get, the nearer) Tym bli˝ej, tym bli˝ej!)

When you return – (you will without a fail, Gdy wrócisz – (nie mo˝esz nie wróciç, Thinking that keeps me sleepless, Co noc o tem myÊl´ bezsennie, I’ll wait for you tomorrow again ˚e jutro b´d´ czeka∏ na ciebie. Tak jest And everyday again) codziennie.)

When you return – perhaps frozen, Gdy wrócisz – mo˝e zzi´bni´ta, When you return – maybe tired, Gdy wrócisz – mo˝e zm´czona, I’ll shower with kisses your hair, W∏osy twe b´d´ ca∏owa∏, Your eyes, your face, and your shoulders, Oczy, twarz i ramiona,

I won’t let you talk, Nie dam ci dojÊç do g∏osu, Smudging the rouge on your lips, Ró˝ na tych ustach rozma˝´, I’ll burn them with my love Mi∏oÊcià ci usta poparz´, Hot like tea in a thermos. Jak wrzàcà herbatà z termosu.

Marian Hemar, „Termos” in Koƒ trojaƒski (Warsaw: Przeworski, 1936), reprinted in Marian Hemar, Termos (Warszawa: Burchard Edition, [1993]) The Miller Center of Public Affairs University of Virginia