Polish American Journal • June 2009 June 2009 • Vol
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POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL • JUNE 2009 www.polamjournal.com 1 JUNE 2009 • VOL. 98, NO. 6 $2.00 PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT BOSTON, NEW YORK BOSTON, AT PAID PERIODICAL POSTAGE POLISH AMERICAN OFFICES AND ADDITIONAL ENTRY Anna Paquin as Irena Sendler DR. RICHARD LUKAS JOURNALESTABLISHED 1911 www.polamjournal.com REVIEWS SENDER TV DEDICATED TO THE PROMOTION AND CONTINUANCE OF POLISH AMERICAN CULTURE BIO — PAGE 17 OVERDUE: MATT URBAN USPS STAMP • SUPPORT GABRESKI MEMORIAL • A TALE OF TWO CHURCHES THE MAGIC OF ST. JOHN’S EVE • ALL-TIME POLISH AMERICAN BASEBALL TEAM • ZIMERMAN PROTESTS POLICY A GIFT TO AMERICA • SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE SALUTES PODHALANKA • KUDOS FOR SZAREJKO In Step With Success Note by Polish Catholic Auschwitz NEWSMARK Inmate Discovered 65 Years Later MINISTERS MEET. Poland’s foreign minister arrived in OSWIECIM, Poland — In “We were taught how to be Moscow May 5 for meetings with his Russian counterpart a pure stroke of luck, a bottle masons by engineers and mas- on energy and defense, amid tense relations between the containing the names of World ter masons, primarily French Kremlin and Warsaw. War II death camp prisoners Jews,” said Karol Czekal- One of the aims of the Moscow talks will be setting the was found in April by work- ski, 83, another of the Poles ground for a planned visit of Russian PM Validimir Putin ers demolishing a wall in named on the list, which was to Poland for the 70th anniversary commemorations of the what is now a school, but was formally handed over to the outbreak of World War II. The main event is to be held in part of the Nazi facility Aus- Auschwitz-Birkenau. Gdansk, September 1. chwitz, built by the Germans After news of the bottle’s Foreign Ministers Radek Sikorski of Poland and Sergei in Oswiecim, Poland. discovery spread, a Swedish Lavrov of Russia met for the process of “normalizing rela- The note in the bottle woman identified the man tions,” said the Polish Press Agency. written September 20, 1944 who wrote the list — Broni- The meeting also showed that Russia now sees Warsaw included the names and Aus- slaw Jankowiak, Auschwitz as a serious player in the EU, and not as an “anti-Russian chwitz ID numbers of six Pol- ID number 121213 — as her troublemaker,” the daily WYBORCZA commentated. ish Catholics and one French father. The meeting will discuss the so-called Eastern Part- Jew, at the time ages 18 to “I recognized the hand- nership and the United States missile shield to be built in 20. writing. It must be my father’s Poland: both controversial topics that have raised tensions Three of the men on the handwriting,” said Irene between Poland and Russia. Raphaelle ZiemBA of the The Lira Dancers twirls in a cos- list are still alive, including Jankowiak, 49, of Uppsala, tume from the southern Rzeszów region. The dance group Waclaw Sobczak, who hid north of Stockholm. SAVE HISTORIC SHIPYARD, SAYS WALESA. Former is part of the Lira Ensemble, which has been entertaining the bottle, a last sign of life as “I’m surprised that these Polish President Lech Walesa asked European politicians and enlightening audiences for 44 years. The nation’s only he prepared to die. Poles put me in this bottle,” to save the struggling Gdansk shipyard, the cradle of the professional performing Polish American arts company, Lira “I put the bottle in the said Albert Veissid, of Lyon, pro-democracy Solidarity movement that he founded. brings the best of Polish Culture into American life through wall,” Sobczak, 84, who France, the only Jew on the The yard has been under pressure for years with the orchestral and vocal music, dance, and informative English survived Auschwitz but list. “I knew their faces, but threat of bankruptcy. The money-losing business has been language narration. Story on page 4. still bears the ID number — didn’t remember the names.” kept alive with state subsidies, putting Poland at odds with 145664 — the Nazis tattooed The Poles — all Chris- the European Union. Arabs to Build New Town in Poland on his forearm, told the AFP tian — spoke simple French, “The Gdansk shipyard is the one where the transforma- Arab company Limitless intends to purchase a tract of land news agency via telephone and worked on building sites tion of Europe started,” Walesa told a congress of the Euro- in Chrzanow, on which they will build a town replete with from his home in Wrabczyn, while Veissid worked beneath pean People’s Party, a grouping of center-right parties that shopping centers, apartments, office buildings and sports fa- western Poland. them, securing a bunker, he is the biggest in the European Parliament. cilities. They are also interested in buying land in Warsaw, “It was an attempt to leave said. “Please take a moment and think what can be done to Katowice, and Wroclaw. The company, a property division of a trace of our existence as They brought him mar- prevent the destruction of this first monument of our vic- investment giant Dubai World, entered Poland in 2007 and we thought we were going malade and other stolen pro- tory in Europe and in the world,” Walesa said, winning ap- intends to complete land purchases by September, 2009. Once to die,” said Sobczak, sent to visions during the day, then plause. the land purchase in Chrzanow is finalized, construction is Auschwitz in 1943 as a slave came at night to retrieve Poles have a strong emotional attachment to the Gdansk anticipated to last about thirty months. laborer. them, he said. shipyard, a symbol of the demise of communism. BODY OF SLAIN POLE LAID TO REST. The remains of The Vanishing Polish Ethnic Parish in America a Polish geologist beheaded by militants in Pakistan were by Rev. Richard in significant numbers, the first prior- parishes founded by either our parents, buried in his hometown of Krosno, in a ceremony attended Philiposki S.Ch. ity was to have a church congregation, grandparents or great grandparents. As a by state and local authorities and city residents. n 1854, the first Polish Roman where the language and many religious priest of the Society of Christ for Polo- Piotr Stanczak, 42, was kidnapped close to the Afghan Catholic Parish in America was traditions from the old country could be nia and as a student of ethnic parochial border on Sept. 28, 2008 while on a project for a Krakow- founded in Panna Maria, Texas. reestablished in the new world. history and geography, I have studied the based geophysics company that surveys oil and gas fields After the Civil War, began the first Also it was important that the new annual Official Kennedy Catholic Direc- for Pakistani authorities. Ilarger waves of immigrants from Prus- generations of children born here be tory as well as diocesan sources to moni- In return for his freedom, the abductors had demanded sian (German) oc- tor the increasing the release of some imprisoned militants, a condition the cupied Poland. disappearance of Pakistani government refused to meet. Before the end of these parishes that Stanczak was held hostage until his captors beheaded the 19th century, is reach ing an ac- him Feb. 7 in a killing they videotaped. waves began also celerated rate. from Russian Po- On March A CHANCE TO PROVE INNOCENCE. If you hold a lead- land (Kingdom 14th, the Bishop ership position in the Polish American Congress and have of Poland) and of Cleveland an- been accused of collaborating with the Secret Services of Galicia (Austrian nounced the clos- the Communist regime, now is your chance to prove your Poland) right up ing (among oth- accusers wrong. to World War I ers) of most of the Following up on an October 2008 By-Law amendment, and then follow- remaining Polish which made former collaborators ineligible to hold office ing the war to the ethnic parishes in within the organization, the PAC recently passed a lustra- mid 1920s, when the city and dio- tion resolution. This urges all persons in leadership posi- restrictive leg- cese (St. Casimir, tions in the PAC — who hold or have held postwar Polish islation greatly St. Hyacinth, St. citizenship — to apply to Poland’s Institute of National Re- reduced the num- Barbara, Sacred membrance (IPN) for disclosure of documents relating to bers of immigrants Heart of Jesus, their involvement with the Security Services of the Polish allowed from Eastern and Southern Eu- taught the catechism and other subjects Corpus Christi, St. Hedwig in Lake- People’s Republic. rope. It is estimated that somewhere in the Polish language to connect with wood, St. Stanislaus in Lorain, Holy The IPN is based in Poland and its mission is to study around 800-860 churches were estab- their parents and their heritage They Cross in Elyria and St. Hedwig in Ak- crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany and the Communists lished as personal national parishes in often built elaborate churches and par- ron. Earlier Transfiguration, St. Mary of against Poland and the Poles. Current Polish law allows many dioceses of the New England, the ish complexes and expected that many Czestochowa and St. Josaphat in Cleve- for the release of lustration documents only to principals Northeast and Great Lakes area. future generations would be served by land were closed. — only an individual can request vetting by the IPN in Smaller numbers were found far- these structures! Other archdioceses and dioceses such order to determine if, and in what ways, he or she was or ther out in the Midwest and very few in Today there is an alarming accelerat- as Detroit, Boston, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, was not involved with the Security Services of the Polish the West and almost none in the South.