POLISH-MADE YACHTS GAINING POPULARITYPOLISH IN AMERICAN UNITED STATESJOURNAL • SEPTEMBER 2019 www.polamjournal.com 1 PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT BOSTON, NEW YORK AT PERIODICAL PAID POSTAGE POLISH AMERICAN AND ADDITIONAL ENTRY OFFICES JOURNALDEDICATED TO THE PROMOTION AND CONTINUANCE OF POLISH AMERICAN CULTURE WHY ISN’T KLECKO IN THE HALL OF FAME? ESTABLISHED 1911 SEPTEMBER 2019 • VOL. 108, NO. 9 • $2.25 www.polamjournal.com PAGE 12 50 YEARS OF POLONIA ABROAD • 75 YEARS LATER - MONT ORMEL: A PIVOTAL HILL • DOCENT MAKES FUN OF PULASKI NATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR FELICIAN PROFESSOR • TEKLA KLEBETNICA THRILLS • PCF RECIPIENTS AWARDED SENATORS SKIPPED HISTORY CLASSES • EXHIBIT OF JEWISH LIFE IN POLAND PREMIERS • DNA TESTING AND ETHNICITY On the Anniversary of the Beginning of World War II: NEWSMARK Defense ministers discuss threats from Russia Prelude to War German Battleship Opens War at Editor’s note: Knowledge of Poland’s (IAR) Polish and German defense ministers discussed suffering during and after World War II Fort Westerplatte—Polish Troops a variety of security threats, especially those posed by is universal, yet few understand the role Fought Hard for 28 Days Russia, when they met in Berlin, Aug. 16. played by secret pacts between Nazi Poland’s Mariusz Błaszczak and Germany’s Annegret Germany and the Soviet Union. This Kramp-Karrenbauer talked about working together as part piece, written for the 80th anniversary of NATO to deal with security challenges, public broad- of start of World War II, gives insight caster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported. to the behind-the-scenes plotting of his- It quoted Poland’s Błaszczak as saying that the main tory’s infamous butchers, Adolf Hitler topic of the talks was “challenges stemming from aggres- and Joseph Stalin. sive policies by Russia.” Błaszczak was Kramp-Karrenbauer’s first official -for by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski eign guest since she took over in Berlin as defense minis- ter from Ursula von der Leyen in July. Kramp-Karrenbau- fter World War I and the foun- dation of the Republic of Po- er is a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel and tipped land, the new nation was in by some as a potential future German leader. great danger to its very exis- Warsaw commemorates 1944 Atence, as it was weaker than the growing Wola massacre victims powers of Germany and Russia. The es- (IAR) On Mon., Aug. 5, the Polish capital commemo- sence of the predicament of Poland and a threat to its independence and even to AUCTIONEERS C&T PHOTO: rated a bloody Nazi German massacre in the city’s west- its existence, prior to the Second World ern Wola district during the first days of the 1944 Warsaw War was summarized in the testament Uprising. The massacre was the systematic killing of be- of Marshal Józef Piłsudski. He told the tween 30,000 and 65,000 people by German troops during Poles: “veer as long as possible between the early phase of the uprising, which started on August 1. Germany and Russia; if this becomes The commemorations were attended by former under- impossible, bring in to the conflict ground fighters who took part in the insurgency against the rest of the world.” This image shows the Nazi battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein firing what is be- the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II. On the anniversary of the beginning lieved to be the first shot of the Second World War in Gdansk, Poland on the Between August 5 and 12, 1944, tens of thousands of of World War II, it important to remem- Westerplatte peninsula at dawn on September 1 1939. The vessel fired at close Polish civilians along with captured Home Army resis- ber that, during that year, Poland saved range destroying the nearby harbor. It was the beginning of the Nazi invasion tance fighters were systematically murdered by the Ger- Stalin’s Russia from dismal defeat, by of Poland, known as the September Campaign, and saw Britain declare war on mans in mass executions. refusing on January 26, 1939, to join Germany two days later to start the Second World War. The black and white pho- It is estimated that up to 10,000 civilians were killed anti-Soviet alliance the Anti-Comintern to was among many taken by a German sailor, which later ended up in the hands in the Wola district on August 5 alone, the first day of the Pact and take part in a two-front attack of a British historian. The collection of photos was auctioned last year. German operation. Many of the victims were the elderly, on the Soviet Union by Germany and The port attack was the first move women and children. Japan. by Catherine A. Hamilton in a full-scale invasion across the west- The 1944 Warsaw Uprising lasted 63 days before be- Polish ambassador Jozef Lipski n September 1, 1939— ern borders of Poland, from the north at ing put down by better equipped and more numerous Ger- documented in his book “Diplomat in the German battleship Prussia, the northwest at Pomerania and man forces. The insurgency resulted in the death of some Berlin 1933-39,” that good Polish-Ger- Schleswig-Holstein opened the southwest at Czechoslovakia and 18,000 Polish fighters and 200,000 civilians. man relations were of primary impor- tance to him. He proposed an alliance fire on Poland’s Fort Wester- Silesia. Nazi tanks tore across border Fighting food waste against Russia, military cooperation, an Oplatte at the port of Gdansk at 4:45 in the towns and villages, killing an unknown (PAP) Polish parliamentarians have backed new rules air pact, etc. However, the government morning, trapping men inside the burn- number of innocent civilians first thing that same morning in the unprovoked aiming to combat food waste. Under a move approved of Poland knew that the essence of the ing barracks. A garrison of 182 Polish soldiers returned fire immediately and attack. Marshal Edward Smigly-Rydz by the Senate, the upper house of parliament, every shop policies of the Nazi government, at all held off the invasion at Gdansk. The decried the attack as barbarous. with a surface area of over 250 square meters (roughly a times, was the implementation of the ship had docked at the harbor feigning The 370,000 regular Army and 2.8 30-by-90-foot area) which derives half of its revenue from doctrine of Lebensraum, which meant a friendship visit before opening fire on the sale of food will have to give away unsold groceries the sleeping men. See “Invasion of Poland ...,” page 3 to non-governmental organizations. The move has to be See “Prelude ...,” page 3 signed by the president to come into force. The average Pole throws away an estimated 500 pounds Poles Create Most Precise Map of Milky Way to Date of food a year, which means the country as a whole, wastes tracking thousands of young, pulsating about 9 million tons of food annually, according to state stars called cepheids, which are spread news agency PAP. throughout our Solar System’s home Any shop flouting the new rules will have to pay a fine galaxy, according to the Reuters news of approximately five cents for every 4 pounds of unsold agency. food. The Polish astronomers tracked the cepheids using a 1.3-meter telescope Polish Choir earns two gold, one silver medal at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile The Puellae Orantes Girls’ Cathedral Choir from and then pinpointed their location on a Tarnów, southern Poland, scored a major success at the In- 3D model of the galaxy, Science maga- ternational Choral Festival in Taipei. The Polish choir won zine said on its web site. the gold medals in the “youth choirs” and “ethno music” According to Science, the study categories and added a silver in the “sacred music” cat- PHOTO: K. ULACZYK/J. SKOWRON/OGLE/ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY, UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW “helps us see the galaxy in a whole new egory. It also won a special prize for the best interpretation Warsaw Telescope and Milky Way Cepheids discovered by the OGLE survey. way.” of a work by a Taiwanese composer performed by a choir The oldest stars in our home galaxy, from outside of Taiwan. WARSAW — Polish scientists from in the prestigious Science magazine the Milky Way, are said to have formed The competition attracted choirs from China, South the University of Warsaw’s Astronomi- proved for the first time in history that shortly after the Big Bang explosion that Korea, Macao and the Philippines, in addition to Taiwan, cal Observatory have created the most the Milky Way’s disk of stars is not flat marked the beginning of the universe and Poland. The prizewinners were decided by an interna- precise map to date of the Milky Way but twisted in shape. some 13.8 billion years ago. tional jury of composers, conductors, and vocalists. galaxy. The scientists produced a three- —PAP/Reuters/Science Research by the Poles published dimensional model of the galaxy by 2 www.polamjournal.com POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL • SEPTEMBER 2019 ALMANAC VIEWPOINTS POLISH Follow us on Facebook, AMERICAN and on the web, too, at: Senators Show How Uninformed They Really Are www.polamjournal.com A letter signed by 88 the normal mechanism,” JOURNAL September Q Wrzesień U.S. senators — includ- Wojcik told public radio. Dedicated to the Promotion ing those running for “But this is all about prop- and Continuance of Gdy wrzesień z pogodą zaczyna, president — calls on Sec- erty that has no heirs and Polish American Culture zwykle przez miesiąc retary of State Mike Pom- Polish law regulates this in ESTABLISHED 1911 pogoda trzyma.