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"The remains of one of the few concrete ships to survive WWII has come under scrutiny after a local history expert said that the boat has been wrongly identified for the last few decades.
"Regarded as one of the greatest curiosities of North-Western Poland, the 90-metre vessel found in Lake Dąbie is believed to have been completed in 1944 in what is now Darłowo.
"With steel lacking at this late stage of the war, the ship was part of a wider project approved by Albert Speer to find alternate solutions to the Third Reich’s raw material crisis."
This is a fascinating piece of history! Learn more about it and Polish efforts surrounding it at the First News:
https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/history-expert-solves-mystery-surrounding-ship-made-of-concrete-following-decades-of-speculation-27216
"Easily mistaken for the parcel lockers that have become such an endemic feature of Poland’s towns and cities, automatic book dispensers have taken the country by storm and look set to become one of the dominant urban trends of 2022.
"Yet whilst paczkomats have faced a backlash in some quarters on account of their ugly visual style, book machines have received a far warmer response with many admirers praising them for the innovative way in which they have returned reading to the limelight.
"First appearing in Łódź’s Manufaktura complex in the summer of 2020, the idea has since taken off rapidly with an increasing number of cities getting in on the act."
These new book dispensers invented in Poland are really cool! Read more about them at the First News:
https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/bookworm-heaven-automatic-24hr-book-dispensers-set-to-become-2022s-newest-trend-27205
"There is no other line from a song better known to Poles than the one that starts the chorus of the national anthem.
"'March, march Dąbrowski, from the land of Italy to Poland' may sound clunky in translation, but the rhyming couplet slides off the tongue beautifully in Polish at grand state occasions, football matches and wherever Poles gather to nurture their patriotism.
"But who exactly was Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, what were his Polish legions and how did they come to be in Italy?
"Now is a good time to answer these questions as Dąbrowski established his Polish legions in Italy 225 years ago on 9 January in 1797."
Read more about General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski and the Polish Legions of the Napoleonic Era at the First News:
https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/who-was-national-anthem-father-jan-henryk-dabrowski-27160
"Major Aleksander Tarnawski pseud. 'Upłaz' celebrates its 101st birthday. This is the last living cichociemny, that is, a commando of the Polish underground from World War II. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki expressed his wishes to the veteran."
A great milestone for a great man! Though the translation is a tad rough, there is excellent information about the cichociemni and Major Aleksander Tarnawski's life so far at the full Spark Chronicles article:
https://sparkchronicles.com/aleksander-tarnawski-pseud-uplaz-is-101-years-old/
"He underwent intensive training for cichociemni, i.e. commandos of the Polish underground. These soldiers came from all units of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. They shared an ethos of service in the most dangerous conditions and the strictest secrecy. In 2016, Major Tarnawski recalled his training in Great Britain. – One day, it was the end or the middle of 1943, I was asked to visit the company chancellery, where a colonel from London was waiting, who asked me if I wanted to go to Poland. Because once, when I was 22 at the time, and secondly, there was a war all over the world, and I was sitting here idly, I agreed to go to Poland without hesitation – he said."
January 8, 1894: Father Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Catholic priest, is born in Zduńska Wola. He became a Christian Martyr when he volunteered to be executed at Auschwitz in place of another prisoner.
Kolbe was heavily influenced by a childhood vision he had of the Virgin Mary, and became an ordained priest in 1919. Between the years of 1930 and 1936, he departed on a series of religious missions in East Asia. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, his monastery was shut down for sheltering Jewish refugees and publishing anti-Nazi literature. He was arrested and imprisoned at Auschwitz.
At the end of July 1941, three prisoners escaped from Auschwitz. In response, the SS camp guards picked 10 random prisoners to be executed as collective punishment.
“It once happened that a young inmate was chosen, whereupon an old man, a priest, stepped out of the ranks and asked the Camp Commandant to take him and release the young man.
“This was a powerful moment and the block froze in amazement.
“The Commandant agreed.
“The heroic priest went to his death and the other inmate returned to the ranks.”
-Excerpt from our title, “The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery,” by Captain Witold Pilecki.
Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man whose life Father Kolbe had saved, survived Auschwitz and was freed by Allied liberation forces in 1944. He was reunited with his wife after WW2, and lived a full life until his passing in 1995.
When the selfless sacrifice of Father Kolbe became known, the Catholic church beatified him as a Confessor of the Faith in 1971 by Pope Paul VI, and then as a martyr by Pope John Paul II in 1982. John Paul II declared Father Maximilian Kolbe “The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century.”
"Over 10,000 volunteers – ranging in age from four years old to 90 – joined campaigns to restore nearly 100 Jewish cemeteries across Poland as part of a concerted push last year.
"The activities were coordinated by the newly founded Coalition of Guardians of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland, a network of organisations and activists caring for such sites.
"Before the Holocaust, Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, over three million strong. Around 90% were killed under the German occupation, while many others fled during and after the war. Today, an estimated 20,000 Jews live in the country.
"That has left a rich Jewish cultural heritage – including hundreds of cemeteries – with very few Jews to care for it. As a result, the maintenance of many Jewish sites relies on local communities and volunteers.
"'The guardians see their activity as working…for their own identity and for the sake of building a broader awareness of the multicultural history of Poland,' said the Coalition of Guardians in a statement to Notes from Poland."
Read more about this great project and the history behind it at Notes from Poland:
https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/01/07/over-10000-volunteers-helped-restore-100-jewish-cemeteries-in-poland-last-year/
"A host of events are expected to take place in Poland this year to pay tribute to educator and psychologist Maria Grzegorzewska, who was a pioneer of special education in the country for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities.
"The resolution passed by the lower house of Poland’s parliament in October honoured Grzegorzewska as an 'outstanding founder of special education in Poland.'
"Grzegorzewska was born on April 18, 1888. She spent her life working for people with disabilities and inspired generations of educators and therapists, the resolution said."
Read more about this remembrance event and Maria Grzegorzewska's amazing life at Polskie Radio:
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7989/Artykul/2827988,Poland-pays-tribute-to-educator-Maria-Grzegorzewska
Marian Pisarek, 303 Squadron fighter ace, was born 3 January 1912 at Łosie near Radzymin, east of Warsaw.
During the 1939 Invasion of Poland, Pisarek was leading 141 Eskadra and confirmed 3 kills against German aircraft. In 1940, while in France, he was posted to the fighter section of Captain Tadeusz Rolski.
Pisarek arrived in Britain on 23 June 1940 and was posted to 303 Squadron on 21 August 1940. Despite being shot down on 7 September 1940, Pisarek went on to shoot down at least 4 German planes during the Battle of Britain.
On 17 April 1942 he assumed command of the 1st Polish Fighter Wing at Northolt, West London. Pisarek was shot down and killed on 29 April 1942 when leading his wing over France.
Pisarek was awarded the Golden Cross of the Virtuti Militari (posthumously), the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari, the Cross of Valour and three bars, and the British DFC. A street in Warsaw was named after him in 1979, as was a primary school at Radzymin in 1991. His biography by Krzysztof Kubala was published in Polish in 2005 under the title Start w nieskończoność (Take-off Into Eternity).
Pisarek is credited with 11 destroyed, 2 shared destroyed, 1 probable destroyed, and 2 damaged.
Information from our book "303 Squadron: The Legendary Battle of Britain Fighter Squadron" by Arkady Fiedler, which you can find here:
https://www.amazon.com/303-Squadron-Legendary-Britain-Fighter/dp/1607720051/
"A documentary based on a home movie shot by an American in 1938 provides a look at the vibrancy of a Jewish community in Europe just before the Holocaust.
"The 16-millimeter film, made by his grandfather, David Kurtz, on the eve of World War II, showed the Alps, quaint Dutch villages and three minutes of footage of a vibrant Jewish community in a Polish town.
"Old men in yarmulkes, skinny boys in caps, girls with long braids. Smiling and joking. People pour through the large doors of a synagogue. There’s some shoving in a cafe and then, that’s it. The footage ends abruptly.
"Kurtz, nevertheless, understood the value of the material as evidence of Jewish life in Poland just before the Holocaust. It would take him nearly a year to figure it out, but he discovered that the footage depicted Nasielsk, his grandfather’s birthplace, a town about 30 miles northwest of Warsaw that some 3,000 Jews called home before the war."
See the footage and read more about the story behind at the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/movies/three-minutes-a-lengthening-documentary.html
