POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL • JULY 2010 www.polamjournal.com 1 JULY 2010 • VOL. 99, NO. 7 $2.00 PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT BOSTON, NEW YORK BOSTON, AT PAID PERIODICAL POSTAGE POLISH AMERICAN OFFICES AND ADDITIONAL ENTRY JOURNALESTABLISHED 1911 www.polamjournal.com A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR LADY OF CZESTOCHOWA’S DEDICATED TO THE PROMOTION AND CONTINUANCE OF POLISH AMERICAN CULTURE AMBER — PAGE 14 BUST OF STALIN IS AN INSULT • NATIONAL KATYN MEMORIAL OBSERVES ANNIVERSARY • CURIOSITIES OF WAWEL THE BURZYNSKI SAGA • ORCHARD LAKE SEMINARY GRADS • DOES A COAT OF ARMS GO WITH YOUR LAST NAME? REFRESHING COLD SUMMER SOUPS • SZCZUR A REAL SPORTS HERO • YOUNG JACK KENNEDY AND POLAND Father Jerzy Joins The Run-Off to Decide A Tragic Fate Retold Ranks of Blesseds NEWSMARK PHOTO: STAS KMIEC Presidency Pro-Solidarity POLAND ARRESTS ALLEGED MOSSAD AGENT. The Kaczyński, Komorowski German federal prosecutor’s office says Polish authorities Top Vote-getters Priest Beatified have arrested an alleged Mossad agent wanted in con- by Robert Strybel in Warsaw nection with the slaying of a Hamas leader in Dubai. WARSAW—Bronisław A prosecutor’s spokesman told The Associated Press Komorowski, the candi- that Germany is now seeking Israeli Uri Brodsky’s extra- date of the pro-business dition. However, Israeli ministers want him returned to Civic Platform (PO) group- Israel. ing, won 41.54 percent of Brodsky is suspected of working for a foreign spy the vote in the first round of agency in Germany and helping issue a fake German Poland’s presidential elec- passport to a member of the Mossad hit squad that was tion. His main rival Jarosław allegedly behind the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Kaczyński, representing the January. He was arrested in early June upon his arrival in conservative Law and Justice Poland because of a European arrest warrant issued by (PiS) party, came second with Germany. the backing of 36.46 percent “EYESORE” TO BECOME HOMES, SCHOOL. Nearly of the voters. Under Poland’s four years after a wrecking ball took to Baltimore’s old St. election law, a candidate must Stanislaus Church site, work is again under way to make win more than 50 percent of by Robert Strybel way for a new project. the vote to become president. WARSAW — Some Developer Larry Silverstein is acquiring the property As a result the top two con- 150,000 pilgrims from all from the Franciscan Friars. He said his first order of busi- tenders will face each other in over Poland and beyond ness is to get a school building in shape for a Montessori a run-off set for July 4th. filled Warsaw’s vast Piłsudski school to occupy in the fall, and then he plans to build as The vote followed an un- Square for the beatification many as 20 townhouses. usually short, less than sev- of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, Silverstein has done ten other projects in Fells Point. en-week election campaign a pro-Solidarity priest mur- “It’s right up our alley. We restore old buildings and do conducted in the shadow dered by communist Poland’s urban infill, so to get a property like this in my backyard of disaster. President Lech secret police in 1984. The is a dream-come true,” the developer said. Kaczyński, Jarosław’s twin beatification mass, concel- Some unresolved issues remain for the site, which brother, First Lady Maria A visitor to the Polish Consulate in New York examines pan- ebrated by 120 bishops and many called an “eyesore.” Silverstein said the so-called Kaczyńska and 94 other po- els depicting the background to the Katyń Forest Massacre some 2,500 priests was pre- four-bay house that’s still standing is unstable and can’t litical, military and religious of 1940. Katyń: Genocide, Politics and Morality, an extraordi- sided over by papal delegate be saved. He said the old church is not going anywhere, figures as well as war veter- nary exhibit created by The Council to Protect the Memory Archbishop Angelo Amato but he’s welcoming ideas. ans died in a plane crash in of Combat and Martyrdom in Poland was displayed at the who heads the Vatican’s can- St. Stanislaus church closed its doors ten years ago. Smolensk, Russia while en Consulate on May 20, in conjunction with the latest book onization office. The former Franciscan stronghold was once the center of route to a commemoration of on the subject – Katyń: Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of See “Popieluszko,” page 6 the neighborhood. See “Election,” page 4 Truth authored by Allen Paul. Story on page 4. PSAA DISTRICT 7 BRINGS HOME HLOND TROPHY. The Aria Chorus, a mixed choir from Wallington, N.J. won Two Flood Waves Inundate Poland highest points at the 49th International Convention of Spring 2010: water, mud and toxic slime the Polish Singers Alliance, held in Buffalo, May 27-30. By Robert Strybel The 49th International Convention was hosted by the WARSAW–This year’s spring floods have caused widespread de- Alliance’s District IX, Buffalo, and chaired by Mary Lou struction, grief and terror across Poland—a country still recuperating PHOTO: EPA/BGNES Wyrobek. Co-chairs were by the Hon. Ann T. Mikoll and from the shock of April’s air tragedy in which the Presidential Couple Janina Mazun. and 94 others perished. It was the worst deluge since the 1997 flood In addition to competitions, and business meetings, of the century which claimed 55 lives and devastated many parts of members of visiting choirs toured Western New York. the country. Some of the 1997 victims had barely managed to rebuild Combined choruses sang at a Mass at St. Stanislaus their homes and their lives, when this year’s floods again submerged Church. or swept away everything they owned. Other winners included the Oginski Chorus from It began in mid-May with days of exceptionally heavy downpours Hempstead, N.Y., which won first place in Male Chorus which unleashed flash floods in the southwest, including Kłodzko Competition, and the Club Filaret from Detroit, which Valley, among the hardest hit 13 years ago. The rains continued and took first place in Female category. Firemen build dikes in Torun, north Poland. See “Floods ...” page 8 CRASHSITE THIEVES CAUGHT. Four Russian soldiers were arrested for the theft of bank cards from the wreck- age of the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Why Was Hollywood at War with Poland? Kaczynski and ninety-five others in April. An Interview with interest to a popular Polonian readership. Its The thieves used bank cards stolen from the body of author, Professor M.B. Biskupski, discussed crash victim Andrzej Przewoznik to withdraw a total of Professor M.B. Biskupski his book with the Polish American Journal. about $6,000 over a two-day period from Przewoznik’s Hollywood’s War with Poland, 1939- Mieczyslaw B. Biskupski has held the bank account. Russian investigators report that the four 1945, just published by the University Press Stanislas Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish suspects have admitted the theft and are cooperating of Kentucky, is a thoroughly documented and Polish-American Studies at Central Con- with officials. study of how Tinsel Town portrayed Poland necticut State University, New Britain, since The soldiers were on duty at the airport in Smolensk in films made during World War II. Its damn- 2002. Born in Chicago of parents whose ori- where the Russian-made plane carrying the Polish Presi- ing indictment shows that, while Hollywood gins came from Mazowsze and Poland’s east- dent and his delegation crashed while en route to a me- generally ignored Poland, when it did deal ern borderlands, he was a high school drop- morial ceremony at the site of the Katyn Massacre. with the country, it portrayed it in uncom- out who eventually received a fellowship and Meanwhile, addressing a press conference in Warsaw, plimentary, negative, and even false ways. earned his doctorate from Yale University. Polish government spokesman Paweł Graś apologized to Why Hollywood chose to present Poland so Dr. Biskupski subsequently taught at St. John the servicemen of the OMON Russian swat team for sug- Fisher College, Rochester, New York, and the gesting they were responsible for the theft of the credit badly—the ally whose invasion caused the University of Rochester. He has been a Ful- cards. Speaking in Russian, Graś explained that he had start of World War II—is the subject of this made a mistake. work which, while thoroughly researched and bright Fellow at the University of Warsaw documented, remains very readable and of See “ ... Hollywood ...” page 3 Professor M.B. Biskupski 2 www.polamjournal.com POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL • JULY 2010 ALMANAC VIEWPOINTS QUOTES / compiled from news sources July • Lipiec “Having noth- Bust of Stalin is An Insult Cohen’s Skewed View ing to do, I am Veterans organizations, visitors famines he engineered in the early “For the surviving Jews of East- Post, in response to Cohen’s gener- correcting the to the site, and local residents are 1930s to collectivize Soviet agricul- ern Europe, there was no going alizations. Paris edition of among the many expressing their ture. He also entered World War II home — and no staying, either. Eu- v v v Bach; not only the engraver’s outrage at the erection of a bust of on the side of Nazi Germany, and rope was hostile to them, not in the “It is particularly painful that the mistakes, but Jozef Stalin at the National D-Day only became an ally of the West- least appalled or sorry about what Poland of today, a strong ally of Is- also the mis- Memorial in Bedford, Virginia.