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POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL • JUNE 2013 www.polamjournal.com 1 JUNE 2013 • VOL. 102, NO. 6 $2.00 PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT BOSTON, NEW YORK NEW BOSTON, AT PAID PERIODICAL POSTAGE POLISH AMERICAN OFFICES AND ADDITIONAL ENTRY JOURNALESTABLISHED 1911 www.polamjournal.com VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN PRAISES POLES DEDICATED TO THE PROMOTION AND CONTINUANCE OF POLISH AMERICAN CULTURE BACK COVER A REMINDER FROM READER’S DIGEST • A DAY DEVOTED TO KOŚCIUSZKO • OPENING OF JAN KARSKI EXHIBIT ACPC AWARDS FIVE $5K PULASKI SCHOLARSHIPS • USING GAZETTEERS AND MAPS TO FIND YOUR ANCESTORS FOLK WISDOM OF THE POLISH PEOPLE • JUST SAY JUSZCZYK • DEBICKI TRANSFORMS IN “THE GREAT GATSBY” New Report Polish NEWSMARK Finds Far Kmieć Presents Theater POLAND TO REDUCE MILITARY PRESENCE IN AF- Greater Nazi Award in Warsaw Literature GHANISTAN. The 13th rotation of Polish soldiers in Af- ghanistan, begun last month, featured a reduced number Cruelty and Me of troops compared to those that came before it, as Poland WASHINGTON, D.C. — by Dr. John Guzlowski gradually prepares to withdraw from the country and shifts Researchers at the United Polish Literature and I more responsibilities to the Afghan side. States Holocaust Memorial have had a stormy relation- Overall, 1,600 soldiers and personnel are stationed in Museum have discovered a ship. For much of my writ- Afghanistan and an additional 400 troops will be waiting far greater number of Nazi ing and reading life, I wanted in Poland, ready for immediate deployment. The previous Germany’s ghettos, slave nothing to do with it or any rotation consisted of 1,800 troops, and the one before it labor sites, concentration other aspect of Poland’s cul- included 2,500. camps, and killing factories ture or history. I didn’t want to The May rotation is the Polish army’s last large con- than previously believed. know anything about Cyprian tingent serving in Afghanistan. The next rotation, set to The researchers cataloged Kamil Norwid or Henryk deploy in the fall, will be Poland’s last, and will include some 42,500 Nazi ghettos Sienkiewicz or Adam Mick- far fewer troops. Poland plans to withdraw all of its troops and camps throughout Eu- iewicz or Władysław Rey- from Afghanistan in 2014. rope, spanning German-con- mont or Czesław Miłosz or trolled areas from France to Wisława Szymborska. What VATICAN DOCTORS APPROVE MIRACLE. The canon- Russia and Germany itself, those names represented and ization of Blessed John Paul II is getting closer quickly, during Hitler’s reign of bru- what those writers had writ- and it could be celebrated next October. tality from 1933 to 1945. ten meant less than nothing to The Medical Council of the Congregation for the “The numbers are so much me. They and the Poland they Causes of Saints has recognized as inexplicable one heal- higher than what we origi- wrote about represented ev- POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL CULTURE EDITOR ing attributed to the Pope Wojtyla. If it is also approved by nally thought,” said Hartmut erything that I wanted to get theologians and the cardinals, it will bring the Polish Pope, Berghoff, director of the in- STAŚ KMIEĆ (left) presented the award for “Best Chore- as far away from as possible. who died in 2005, the halo of sainthood in record time, just stitute, said after learning of ographer” at the 7th Annual Jan Kiepura Musical Theater I wanted to say to Poland and eight years after his death. the new data. Awards (Teatralna Nagroda Muzyczna im. Jana Kiepury), its literature what Jesus said Two doctors of the Vatican council had previously ex- “We knew before how held in Warsaw, May 16. to the devil, “Get thee hence, amined this new case, and both gave a favorable opinion. horrible life in the camps and The Kiepura awards include twelve categories: best Satan.” It is still premature to talk about dates for the canoniza- ghettos was,” he said, “but musical, singers, dancers, director and conductor, How did I come to feel tion, but the rapidity with which the examination of the the numbers are unbeliev- and stage designers, among others. The winner in the this way? miracle process is happening, still leaves open the possi- able.” category of “best choreographer” was Artur Żymełka of Well, let me explain. bility of celebrating it on Sun., Oct. 20, very close to the The documented camps the Music Theatre in Łódz for the production of Leonard I was born in a refugee liturgical holiday assigned to the Blessed Wojtyla, which include not only “killing cen- Bernstein’s American musical “Wonderful Town.” camp in Germany in 1948. is Oct. 22. ters” but also thousands of The awards are named in honor of the acclaimed Pol- My parents were both Polish forced labor camps, where ish tenor and actor, Jan Wiktor Kiepura (1902-1966). Catholics who were taken to AMONG THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL.” Poland’s prime prisoners manufactured war Kmieć has directed and choreographed musicals, Germany as slave laborers. minister and foreign minister are listed in the May/June supplies; prisoner-of-war ballet, opera, and fi lm in New York, Los Angeles, Chica- My father spent four years edition of the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine as two camps; sites euphemistically go, Boston, Ireland, and for national tours in the United there in Buchenwald concen- of the 500 most infl uential people in the world. named “care” centers, where States, and has performed on Broadway, with star Rudolf tration camp, my mother two The editors describe Foreign Policy’s inaugural “Power pregnant women were forced Nureyev, Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and Boston Bal- and a half in an agricultural Map” as a “list of lists,” collating rankings from Forbes to have abortions or their ba- let. He is on the voting committee for Broadway’s Tony camp. After the war, my par- bies were killed after birth; magazine, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. Awards and is on the National Council of Actors’ Equity. ents felt they couldn’t return and brothels, where women Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Foreign Min- Kmieć is a graduate of Tufts University and the to Poland, and so they spent were coerced into having sex ister Radoslaw Sikorski are virtually the only representa- school of Polish dance at the University of Marie Curie- six years living in Displaced with German military person tives from Central and Eastern Europe outside of Russia. Sklodowska in Lublin. Persons (DP) camps in Ger- The list of the 500 most infl uential people is presented See “Report ...,” page 3 continued on page 4 alphabetically, so no one individual is ranked more power- ful than another, although Foreign Policy magazine writes, with an apology to “declinists” that “Americans are still An Interview with Fr. Zygmunt Zieliński No. 1 in pretty much everything that matters. For now.” Professor Emeritus of Church History at the Catholic University of Lublin The list begins with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and includes European Commission by John Grondelski were, after all, books trans- President Jose Barroso, European Council president Her- The abdication of Pope lated into Polish (like Sep- man Van Rompuy and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Benedict XVI and the election pelt and Loeffl er’s History of Ashton. of Argentine Cardinal Jorge the Popes) which had a good Bergoglio as Pope Francis reputation. And there were GRIMM NAMED TO CAUCUS. Rep. Michael Grimm (R- once again brought the papacy many studies of that subject, Staten Island/Brooklyn) has been chosen as one of the four to world attention in the early especially in Germany. Begin- co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on Poland. months of 2013. We spoke ning with Pope John XXIII, Grimm, who represents large Polish populations on with Fr. Zygmunt Zieliński, however, the papacy began both sides of the district, said he welcomed the opportunity professor emeritus of Church to function differently in the to work on their behalf in Congress. history at the Catholic Univer- world than it had before. Two “Poland has been a longtime ally of the United States, sity of Lublin and expert in the things infl uenced this: John going above and beyond the call of duty with its shared history of the modern papacy, XXIII was a different kind commitment to democracy and its willingness to send about recent events in the Vat- of person—in a certain sense troops to fi ght alongside American soldiers in Iraq and Af- ican. Fr. Zieliński served in the opposite of Pius XII—and 1986/87 at St. Stanislaus Par- the Second Vatican Council. ghanistan,” said Grimm. Europe is losing its Christian identity, said Fr. Zieliński. “ What ish in Rochester, New York, The Church found itself un- As a co-chair of the committee, Grimm said he would that means anybody with an elementary understanding of as well as a visiting scholar comfortable in the closed and lead efforts to support issues important to the Polish com- history should grasp.” munity, including fi ghting for Poland’s “long-overdue” en- (1994, 1995) at Seton Hall besieged quarters in which it try into the visa waiver program. University in New Jersey. found itself after Italian Unifi - now in a new printing. Why this interest The waiver program allows foreign workers and trav- cation in 1870 and in the face in the papacy? elers of participating countries up to 90 days of visa-free Your book, Papiestwo i papieże of the liberal, leftist Marxist, and athe- My book has had a career which I travel to the United States. Thirty-seven countries are cur- dwóch ostatnich wieków, has become a ist offensives at work in the world.