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Year: 2013

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Restoring what was lost

From the Atlantic Cities: Buffalo Residents Team Up to Buy Old Train Station a $3,000 Gift

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, one historic building might be getting a piece of its old self back as a gift from locals.

After spotting a $9,000 light fixture that once belonged to the Buffalo Central Terminal, neighborhood booster Christopher Byrd helped organize an online fundraiser to bring it back to its original home. This weekend, the effort reached its goal. “After I posted a link to it on Facebook, a lot of readers said they’d chip in $100 or $10 so I emailed them and said ‘let’s try to do this then,'” Byrd says.

Byrd heads Broadway-Fillmore Alive, an organization that promotes Central Terminal’s surrounding neighborhood. The current owner of the light fixture, Robert Navarro of Toronto’s Navarro Gallery put the item on hold until December 24, willing to part with it for $3,000 under the condition that it’s reinstalled inside the Terminal. “I was reached by multiple volunteers and interested parties from the Buffalo area by email. They arrived all at once,” says Navarro, adding, “I always admired Buffalo for its architecture.”

The train station served its last passengers in 1979 and experienced a rapid decline under multiple owners until the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation took control in 1997. Much of its interior was either sold off or stripped away in the 1980s with baggage carts, clocks, signage, railings and lighting fixtures finding new homes around the world. Fans of the Terminal continue to find the station’s decorations elsewhere, from eBay listings to antique stores, art museums or even Hong Kong restaurants.

The CTRC, while known for its efforts to restore the building, have never had much money to work with, depending mostly on preservation grants and memberships. “This effort from BFA allows us to concentrate on funds for stability and remediation,” says Marilyn Rodgers, executive director of the CTRC. Rodgers and the rest of the CTRC board is currently focused on repairing the building’s roof and the 15-story tower that makes it one of the city’s most identifiable symbols.

Bigger fundraising efforts have taken place for former pieces of the building before, most notably the $25,000 purchase of the original clock that now stands in the terminal’s main hall again after it was spotted on eBay in 2004.

While Central Terminal has retained some of its original decorations since its new ownership, you’ll still find its parts scattered through unexpected places. According to the CTRC’s website: The clock was found for sale in Chicago. Mailboxes from inside the building are currently in the The Wolfsonian-Florida International University Museum in Miami, Florida. A number of light fixtures are now in the Cafe Deco restaurant chain in Hong Kong. Our lights have also appeared in the movies The Hardway, For Love or Money, and Bullets Over Broadway.

Art, Christian Witness, , ,

Traditional iconography by Marek Czarnecki

Christ_the_Great_High_Priest-1
Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest with Apostles. Egg tempera and gold leaf on birch panel written by Marek Czarnecki, Seraphic Restorations.

Marek Czarnecki, a Polish-American from Meriden, Connecticut runs Seraphic Restorations and writes icons by commission and holds iconography workshops. Mr. Czarnecki studied under the tutelage of Russian Orthodox iconographer Ksenia Pokrovsky, within the Izograph School which she founded in Moscow. He received the 1996 & 2004 Artistís Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, recieved the American Council for Polish Culture’s Jan de Rosen Award, and an apprenticeship grant funded by the National Endowment for the Arts through the Southern New England Traditional Arts Program.

Mr. Czarnecki’s studio is located at 464 Pratt Street Extension, Meriden CT. He can also be contacted by telephone at 203-238-7553.

He notes:

All icons are custom made to order. Special deliberation must be made by the client in selecting an appropriate image. The iconographer collaborates with the client to consider the careful integration of each icon into the specific architecture or ethnic tradition of the site where it will be placed.

The icons of this studio are made with natural materials; the foundation is linen glued to a wood panel, primed with a marble-based gesso. Painted with egg tempera mixed with natural earth and mineral pigments, the halos and backgrounds are gilded with 22 kt. gold. The icon is then varnished with copal resin.

Every effort is made to follow the canon of rubrics governing icon-writing.

Perspective, , , , ,

What immigrants can teach us about reconnecting with our roots

From PBS Newshour: What Immigrants Can Teach the Rest of America about Health, Happiness and Hope

When Claudia Kolker began reporting about recent immigrants to the U.S., she found a wealth of wisdom to be shared with all Americans. Kolker talks to Ray Suarez about her new book, “The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness and Hope.”

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JEFFREY BROWN: Now: a fresh look at the immigrant experience and some surprising research on their health and ways of life in America.

Ray Suarez has our book conversation.

RAY SUAREZ: It’s a phenomenon that stumped social scientists for years. Hispanics in the U.S. are worse off than their white neighbors by almost every economic measures, higher poverty rates, higher dropout rates, less access to health care.

Yet, they live longer, two years more than non-Hispanic whites, nearly seven years more than African-Americans. Other immigrant groups also seem to have better physical and mental health, especially in the first generation after moving here.

In a new book, journalist Claudia Kolker looks at how some of the customs imported by America’s newcomers benefit those groups and could benefit others. It’s called “The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America About Health, Happiness and Hope.”

Claudia Kolker, welcome.

CLAUDIA KOLKER, “The Immigrant Advantage”: Thank you so much.

RAY SUAREZ: As we embark or seem to be embarking on another debate about immigration, what it’s for, how much, how little, the rules that we’re going to live by, Americans often ask, why do we want these people here? And will they become American?

And you do an audacious thing right off the top, which is challenge the reader to think about what we can learn from immigrants. Tell us more about that.

CLAUDIA KOLKER: Well, one of the big ideas in this book is that we already have many, many immigrants here.

And while it is essential to understand and have — and have a really sound policy for newcomers and for newcomers to come legally, the great majority of foreign-born people here are here legally. They are here.

They have some extraordinary skills and practices and outcomes that I wanted, not only as a journalist to find out about, but I as a parent and as a citizen.

I wanted some of those things. And so that was the starting point for this book, is some of these successes that some of the least-advantaged people in our culture right now have.

RAY SUAREZ: A lot of these ways of life have to do with the very practical day-to-day skills of living, childbirth, dating, courting, pooling money, instead of going to banks, intergenerational living arrangements. Some of it is stuff that Americans used to do.

CLAUDIA KOLKER: Absolutely.

And that is — that is really one of the keys. Very little in here is exotic. These are some of the practices that made the United States what it is and that we have forgotten, and really forgotten fairly recently, too. We haven’t — we have thought that we haven’t had need for them.

RAY SUAREZ: Give me some examples of what you saw, because you came into people’s lives and watched their daily lives and tried to explain how this thing they do works.

CLAUDIA KOLKER: OK. And I will tell you — I also want to tell you a little bit about how I came to ask this question, which is as a reporter.

First, I reported on the immigrants in my adopted hometown of Houston. But then, because I know so many immigrants, I began to ask foreign-born people what I called the question:

What’s the smartest thing that people did in your home country that you want to hang on to while you’re here and the rest of us ought to copy?

And everybody had an answer. And one of the most striking ones, one of the ones that really resonated to professional American women that I knew and many, many readers was a postpartum practice that, in some form, is really done in almost all of the world, but is taken extremely seriously in very poor rural Mexico.

It’s called the cuarentena. And it sounds like 40 and quarantine also. And that’s because, for 40 days after a baby is born, the resources, the tenderness, the care, the special foods, the rest all go to the new mother. The baby is taken care of and cuddled and cleaned, but it is the mother’s health that is essential to take care of.

And these are women who are very hardworking and don’t get pampered at other times in their lives. But the entire family and community know that the health, the emotional, but really the physical health of the mother is essential to keep the rest of that family alive. And the extremes they go to are striking.

In rural Mexico, in Chiapas, I — I interviewed people who came from Chiapas to Akron, Ohio. They were working in factories, in agriculture. In the first 40 days after a baby is born, a woman may not touch a broom or a dish cloth. And if she does, if she touches it, she is an irresponsible mother, because…

RAY SUAREZ: But do you get measurably better results from the children when — when…

CLAUDIA KOLKER: From the children?

RAY SUAREZ: Right. When you have a baby, and you are giving this time, this pampering, this attention, are you more likely to have a kid that’s going to be healthier? Are you yourself going to be healthier?

CLAUDIA KOLKER: Yes, OK.

Well, to start off, it’s a lot — this is anecdotal. These are folk traditions, OK, and they have not been much studied. But it is true that in the research that has been done — which is limited — it does seem that in many traditional communities, especially in Latin America, where they have many, many problems and much tragedy, but postpartum depression is not one of the things they are familiar with.

And I have heard this over and over. And I need to stress it’s anecdotal, but the research that’s there does suggest this. And the United States, we have up to 15 percent or even 20 percent of postpartum depression in this country.

RAY SUAREZ: You take a look at school excellence and Asian immigrants, and it seems to turn out — surprise, surprise — they just work harder than a lot of American kids and work differently.

CLAUDIA KOLKER: Work differently and work smartly.

And here, again, one of the other ideas that I really gleaned from this, these are practices that have been treasured for millennia in their home countries. Actually, they work a lot of times better here in the United States. The stakes are not so high.

So, in a country like South Korea, the stakes are so high. There are only — there’s a limited number of colleges to get into that will allow you to move up socially and economically. But we have a lot of very, very good colleges in the United States. But we want to get the best out of our public schools.

And you work harder, but, also, Asians come here — many Asians come here with a toolbox of how to survive in their own school systems. And it turns out to be very applicable to our school system. So, that’s the key to all the practices in here they had to translate beautifully to our system.

And the thing that I copied was preemptive tutoring, in other words, tutoring not when junior or missy is already having trouble in math. It’s to get ahead, to always be a step ahead, and with a trusted adult who has less pressure because this person is tutoring — there’s one or, ideally, two or three.

A small group is probably even better than one-on-one, because the peer pressure, the positive peer pressure, is great, and also the confidence of going in and see and seeing that material for a second time.

And so it’s working harder, not as hard as they do in South Korea, which makes people absolutely miserable and is not something we want to copy.

RAY SUAREZ: “The Immigrant Advantage.” Claudia Kolker, I want to continue our conversation online, but thanks for being with us.

CLAUDIA KOLKER: Thank you…

Christian Witness, Perspective, Political, , ,

The newest in intolerance

From The Telegraph: A new intolerance is nudging faith aside

We are not only a Christian country, we are a tolerant one – but it seems the new secularism has no room for toleration

Practicing Christians may be forgiven for feeling like an oppressed minority in this predominantly Christian country.

Yesterday’s judgment by the European Court of Human Rights on people’s right to manifest their religion in the workplace once again leaves them coming off second best to the forces of secularism and political correctness.

In only one case, that of the British Airways employee Nadia Eweida, did the court uphold the individual’s religious rights, in this instance to wear a small cross at work. Miss Eweida was suspended for wearing it on the grounds that it breached BA’s uniform code. But as the ECHR observed, other BA employees had previously been allowed to wear items of religious clothing such as turbans and hijabs “without any negative impact on BA’s brand or image”. The airline has since changed its policy and now allows the wearing of some religious symbols.

But the three other cases in yesterday’s judgment went the other way. Shirley Chaplin, a nurse who was prevented on health and safety grounds from wearing a necklace with a cross at work as she had for 31 years; Gary McFarlane, a marriage counsellor who was sacked after saying he might object to counselling gay couples; and Lillian Ladele, a registrar who was disciplined after refusing to conduct civil partnership ceremonies – all were told that their rights had not been violated by their employers, even though they had acted as they had because of their religious convictions.

When an individual’s sincerely held beliefs come into collision with the demands of their employers in this way, surely it is incumbent on both sides to try to resolve the conflict in a grown-up and sensible way. Yet instead of the application of a little common sense, we have seen protracted and costly legal action, followed by a judgment that severely curtails people’s rights to manifest their faith at work. This is part of a wider trend to nudge religion to the margins of society. People of faith are depicted as being not part of the mainstream, as being quirky and different. Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, spoke out persuasively in this newspaper yesterday about the “intolerance of aggressive secularism” and it is time more voices like his were raised.

We are not only a Christian country, we are a tolerant one – but it seems the new secularism has no room for toleration. When these cases first arose, a number of church leaders warned of “apparent discrimination” against churchgoers where the “religious rights of the Christian community are being treated with disrespect”. That claim seems less alarmist than ever.

Several observations. Overall, the point is well taken. If we wish to stress mutual tolerance we need to not just “tolerate,” but accept and respect each individuals’ expression of their belief or non-belief. No one or their beliefs should be marginalized. It is hypocritical to do otherwise.

In relation to the Shirley Chaplin case, the nurse prevented on health and safety grounds from wearing a necklace with a cross at work as she had for 31 years – this makes sense just as doctors have been most recently advised not to wear neckties in patient care. Religion and science should not conflict in such matters.

In relation to people who refuse to do certain things, generally a “job requirement” on the grounds it conflicts with their faith, I give them kudos for sticking to their beliefs and sacrificing for it. It must be remembered however that as Christians we must be prepared to accept persecution for following our faith. We cannot have it both ways. Obviously the martyrs did so, even more so. As with soldiers who refused to go to or fight in Iraq based on their belief in the injustice of the “war,” and were subsequently prosecuted and jailed, or received dishonorable discharges, we must be prepared to accept the consequences of our adherence to our beliefs.

A great point in saying “surely it is incumbent on both sides to try to resolve the conflict in a grown-up and sensible way.” There is always a way to compromise. For example, find the nurse a different job with no patient contact, adjust other work duties, etc. Taking a breath before taking action is the wiser course.

Christian Witness, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Saints and Martyrs, ,

Epiphany Home Blessings – A living tradition

From the Sunday Dispatch: Inviting the Lord into their home

Polish National Catholic Church keeps tradition of blessing, visitation alive

It’s an Eastern European tradition this church is keeping alive.

Father Carmen G. Bolock of St. Mary’s Polish National Catholic Church in Duryea visits each home in his parish around the Feast of the Epiphany.

And he stays for coffee and cake.

Bolock visited the home of Guido and Angie Dianese on York Avenue in Duryea Thursday night.

The home blessing was simple. A short prayer, holy water sprinkled in each room and the door frame marked in chalk. The mark above the door read, “20+K+M+B+13,” which represents the year and in between the numbers are in initials of the three kings from the East that visited Jesus Christ after his birth, traditionally Caspar, an Indian scholar; Melchior, a Persian scholar; and Balthazar, an Arabian scholar. Caspar is represented as a K because of Polish translation, Bolock said.

Bolock said the Epiphany of Visitation for Blessing of Homes, according to the Rite of the Polish National Catholic Church, has roots in the Eastern European Tradition, which includes the Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians and those from the Ukraine and Russia.

But the time Bolock spend with his parishioners goes to the heart of the visit.

“As the Kings came to visit Christ, and brought him the gifts, the Kings come to visit our home and bring the gift of Christ,” Bolock said. “The Kings are bringing Christ as a guest in the home.”

He said a blessing will cleanse the home of negative things that may have happened over the past year, such as illness, death, loss or grief.”

“It picks up the spirit of the home and the family,” he said.

He said he always instructs couples that plan to marry they will invite a lot of people into their home.

“But the one person you want to invite into your home to live there is Christ,” he said. “If Christ is in the home, things tend to go better.”

He said the blessing will offer hope for the New Year.

“Plus, it gets me into the homes, to see what’s going on, and give them time to address any concerns or discuss matters of faith.”

The Dianeses offered coffee and fresh cake to the guests.

Angie Dianese said she started having Bolock over for the blessing several years ago.

“We want our family to start the New Year in good spiritual standing,” she said.

Her husband, Guido, was raised Roman Catholic, but didn’t go to church much until he married Angie.

“We try to go now because of the family,” he said.

The couple has a son, Blake, who is 1.

Bolock said interesting things often happen at home blessings.

When he was stationed at St. Joseph’s Polish National Catholic Church in Middleport, he visited a home with an overzealous 4-year-old.

“When I sprinkled the holy water, some landed on the coffee table,” Bolock said. “He said you’re not supposed to spray water on the coffee table and he came over and wiped it off.”

“Then I went mark the door with chalk, and the kid yelled out, ‘Mommy, he’s writing on the wall!’”

He said his church tries to keep rich and valuable traditions alive.

On the Feast of St. Stephen on Dec. 26, parishioners throw walnuts at him to symbolize the stoning of St. Stephen.

On St. John’s Day, each churchgoer is given an extra cup of wine in commemoration of the failed poisoning attempt of St. John. His wine was poisoned, but the poison turned into a snake and slithered out of the cup.

“In the old days, most houses had a living room and a parlor,” Bolock said. “Nobody came in the parlor unless the pastor came. It was a different time, but I like to keep those old traditions alive as much as possible.”

Christian Witness, Homilies, , , , ,

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Baptism of our Lord

Baptism

Why should I join?
What does it mean?

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

It wouldn’t be unusual to wonder about baptism, what it means. We might also wonder why Jesus was baptized.

For us, baptism is membership in the body of Jesus, the Church – we are made part of Jesus by descending into the water, as He descended into death. With this membership we are promised that we, like Jesus, will rise again.

For us, baptism is washing. We are washed of sin. In baptism we recognize that we fall short of the glory of God. As St. Paul wrote to the Romans “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” We know that we are sinful, no one is perfect and without failings. In baptism we acknowledge our sinfulness and our reliance on God, who through Jesus’ sacrifice washes us of our sinfulness, brings us forgiveness, and welcomes us back – always, no matter what.

For us, baptism is proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God, true God and true man. We proclaim the triune nature of God, Jesus’ sacrificial death, resurrection, and ascension. In baptism we proclaim the Creed – stating definitively what we believe by faith. At Jesus’ baptism the heavens were opened. The Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove. The Father’s voice is heard: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” This is God revealed, as He is, plain and simple, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Jesus’ baptism pointed to all these things. At Jesus’ baptism John publicly recognized and declared that Jesus was the One who was awaited, the Messiah, the One who would baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Jesus’ baptism also showed that He identified with sinners. His baptism symbolized sinners’ baptism into His righteousness. In addition, Jesus baptism showed His approval of John’s baptism, bearing witness to it, that it was from heaven and approved by God. Later, after His resurrection, He would tell His followers that by baptizing the many they would be made His disciples. In Jesus’ baptism the reality of God was revealed in testimony direct from heaven.

All the glorious truth of the mercy of God found in Jesus Christ is on display at His baptism. We join ourselves to that glory and truth in our baptism.

In the dynamics of baptism we join ourselves to all the truth of Jesus. We proclaim that God has freed us by His grace and our acceptance of that grace. We declare with all the faith that we have – we are members of His body, and that He is our Lord and God. We are His members – and it means this: That we receive His mercy and glory.

Christian Witness, Homilies, ,

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Epiphany

IMG_7238-image-extracted-small1-1024x643

Does God play…
hide and seek?

“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.”

Have you ever stopped for directions? The typical joke is that a man will drive around for hours, trying to find a destination, while a woman would immediately stop and ask for directions.

From our reading of the scripture we see that the Wise Men/Kings/Astrologers/Magi did stop and ask directions. They received directions, an answer in response to their search for The Answer, and made their way to Bethlehem.

It seems inconsistent doesn’t it? The Wise Men were following a star. Besides being men, why would they stop for directions if they had the star to guide them?

The lesson here is that something greater was happening. We need to unfold the map, and get our directions by reading between the lines a little.

Certainly, the gospel account is true. The Astrologers saw a sign in the skies and intuited that something wonderful had happened. That intuition isn’t just some human trait, but God’s grace at work in them, asking them to take action. They chose to believe and act on that grace. They decided to believe and follow a light – a star.

The star they followed wasn’t just something in the sky; it was the light glowing in their hearts that drove them onward toward God. That light drove them toward Jesus, the reality of God’s promise to all people.

The Wise Men received a great blessing – from outside of God’s chosen people, God called these men. With the power of His love – that is, His grace – He called Gentile leaders to come to His Son. These representatives of all nations responded. They headed toward Jesus (stopping for directions along the way).

God doesn’t play hide-and-seek. His grace is for all people in the same way as was given to the Magi. The light of His star exists in all hearts as a little flicker, an ember. If we choose to act on that grace and head toward Jesus, that ember will be fanned into a great flame, greater than any star.

When touched by the spark of grace we must not brush it off or put it out. Rather we stop and ask directions. We start in our faith community, our local church. From there, we set out and find Him as fully as we are able. Finding Him we also become His messengers (like the Magi – who as travelers were also bearers of news). With a great light in us we go out and proclaim the Good News. God is not hiding – we only need to fan His many embers into great stars revealing Jesus to all.

Art, Media, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , , , ,

Books for the New Year

Tatra Highlander Folk Culture in Poland and America

From John Guzlowski: Thaddeus Gromada, a retired professor of European History and one of the great authorities on Tatra Highlander culture, has written a book that sets the record straight on the Górals.

The book consists of a series of short, very readable essays on the people of the highlands, their history and their ways and what happened to them when they came to America. A number of these essays talk about Prof. Gromada’s own roots in the highland.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=0984918701]

From writers in Australia

Four self-published workers from writers in Australia at Favoryta including Moja Emigracja/My Migration, an exploration of the cross-cultural experiences of Polish migrants to Australia. It is a collective study of migrant experience by twenty one contributors in Polish and English. Also, Okruchy/Crumbs by Aleksander S. Pęczalski, a volume of poetry and autobiography in Polish.

Finding Poland

From John Guzlowski: In the last few years, a number of excellent books about what happened to the Poles who were taken east to Siberia by the Soviets during World War II have appeared. To this short list must be added Matthew Kelly’s Finding Poland. Part memoir, part history, part family biography, part eulogy for a generation quickly receding, Kelly’s book will touch any Polish-American who has ever looked at old photographs of grandparents whose names have been forgotten or stared at yellow pages written in Polish sixty, eighty, or a hundred years ago.

And as an adult, a historian teaching at the University of Southampton, UK, he set out to answer the questions that he must have asked himself as a boy: Who were those people in those fading photographs, why were they taken from their homes, what did they suffer, and how did the suffering change them?

[AMAZONPRODUCT=0099515997]

The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery

Captain Witold Pilecki had the distinction of being the only known person to smuggle into Auschwitz, so he could report back to the Allies about the conditions there. They didn’t listen. They thought he was exaggerating.

Pilecki, who was one of 150,000 Polish prisoners, was at Auschwitz from September 1940 to April 1943, and witnessed its transition from a P.O.W. camp to an extermination camp before he escaped. Like so many others Polish freedom fighters, he was tortured by Communist authorities after the war. Pilecki was executed at their hands in 1948. Compared with the Communists, “Auschwitz was easy,” he said after his sentence was pronounced. His body has never been recovered.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=1607720094]

A Polish Book of Monsters/Spellmaker

Among the short form finalists for the 2012 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards (for works published in 2011) is Spellmaker by Andrzej Sapkowski, translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel (A Polish Book of Monsters, Michael Kandel, PIASA Books). Spellmaker contains five stories of speculative fiction from dystopian science fiction to fabled fantasy, these dark tales grip us through the authors’ ability to create utterly convincing alien worlds that reflect our own.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=0940962705]

Lune de Miel

From John Guzlowski: From the first stanza of the first poem in this amazing collection, you know Amy Nawrocki is ready to transport you through the magic of her poems to some exotic, crazy, and unimaginable place, a lover’s Paris.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=1622291158]

Walking on Ice

Agnes, a young girl in Poland, shares her life with us as she tries to find her place in her family and her country. But the more she learns, the more out of place she becomes. When Comrade Stalin dies, Agnes’s father pushes the limits and is sent to prison for crimes against them. So now Agnes and her mother are alone in the icy waters of an oppressive system run by an unpredictable government. Agnes starts to learn the difference between truth and lies, how things may appear and how they really are.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=1613469292]

Strangers in the Wild Place

In 1936, the Nazi state created a massive military training site near Wildflecken, a tiny community in rural Bavaria. During the war, this base housed an industrial facility that drew forced laborers from all over conquered Europe. At war’s end, the base became Europe’s largest Displaced Persons camp, housing thousands of Polish refugees and German civilians fleeing Eastern Europe. As the Cold War intensified, the US Army occupied the base, removed the remaining refugees, and stayed until 1994. Strangers in the Wild Place tells the story of these tumultuous years through the eyes of these very different groups, who were forced to find ways to live together and form a functional society out of the ruins of Hitler’s Reich.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=0253006775]

Kaia, Heroine of the 1944 Warsaw Rising

Kaia, Heroine of the 1944 Warsaw Rising tells the story of one woman, whose life encompasses a century of Polish history. Full of tragic and compelling experiences such as life in Siberia, Warsaw before World War II, the German occupation, the Warsaw Rising, and life in the Soviet Ostashkov prison, Kaia was deeply involved with the battle that decimated Warsaw in 1944 as a member of the resistance army and the rebuilding of the city as an architect years later.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=0739172700]

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Professor Timothy D. Snyder was honored with the prestigious Polish award – Kazimierz Moczarski Award for Historical Research – for his book “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.” Professor Snyder also received the 2012 Jerzy Giedroyc Award.

Americans call the Second World War “The Good War”. But before it even began, America’s wartime ally Josef Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens — and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was finally defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war’s end, both the German and the Soviet killing sites fell behind the iron curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness. Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=0465031471]

Daughter of Poland: Anna Bibro

The suffering of the Jewish people during WWII has been well documented, but we have heard little about the lives of others during the war. Anna was an ordinary citizen growing up in prewar Poland. She graduated from a teaching seminary and was married shortly thereafter. The bliss of married life ended August 1939 when Polish troops requested that her husband report to the local armory immediately. She would not see him again for nine years. By early September bombs began dropping and food was scarce for her and her two-year-old son. Russian troops soon invaded and travel was restricted. Farmers were not allowed to bring their goods to market. Anna barely escaped getting sent to Siberia.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=1418433373]

Coal & Ice

The revised second edition of Coal & Ice, an original memoir of fiction and poetry, includes fiction and poetry published in various literary journals including The Paris Review, The California Quarterly, The Rocky Mountain Review, The Minnesota Review, Aspen Anthology, Green House, and The Ohio Journal. Passionate, gritty poetry, Phil Boiarski magically weaves the emotions poetry is meant to evoke. His ability to stitch the memories of yesteryear, when humanity was more aware of nature and the settling of North America by the old Europeans, is stunning.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=1480096997]

Current Events, Perspective, Political, , , , ,

Iran 2013: Making Diplomacy Work featuring Zbigniew Brzezenski

The conference is be available to watch anytime in C-SPAN’s archives.

Brzezinski: US Should Not Follow Israel on Iran Like a “Stupid Mule”

Washington, DC – “I don’t think there is an implicit obligation for the United States to follow like a stupid mule whatever the Israelis do,” said Zbigniew Brzezinski. “If they decide to start a war, simply on the assumption that we’ll automatically be drawn into it, I think it is the obligation of friendship to say, ‘you’re not going to be making national decision for us.’ I think that the United States has the right to have its own national security policy.”

Speaking before a conference sponsored jointly by the Arms Control Association and the National Iranian American Council, Brzezinski effectively ruled out a U.S. or Israel attack on Iran as “an act of utter irresponsibility” that would mean “the region would literally be set aflame.” He warned that a policy based on such unrealistic options ultimately undermined U.S. credibility.

Panelists at the event argued that the timing is right for a renewed diplomatic initiative with Iran. “Right now is the right time, right after the American elections, and right before the Iranian elections,” observed Professor Ahmad Sadri of Lake Forest College. “Remember back to 2008 when we were in the same point in the cycle, except right now on the ground the situation is much worse. There’s more fissile material, and there’s less optimism.”

However, at the same time, Sadri noted that Iran’s soft and hard power in the Middle East has declined. “If I was an American negotiator, I’d say this is exactly the right time to go into [negotiations].”

Nuclear specialist Jim Walsh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argued that both sides needed to be prepared for compromise and to expand their existing offers. “You’re not going to have success if you simply continue to repeat the things you did before that didn’t work.”

“Content-wise, both sides have presented proposals where they are asking a lot and offering very little,” Walsh observed. “This is classic, everyone does this, but in this particular instance where nobody trusts one another, they take that proposal as evidence, ‘Ah ha! The other side isn’t serious.’”

The panelists agreed that the lack of trust was a major obstacle for successful talks…

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New calendar features Polish Catholic churches of Detroit and Hamtramck

From the Macomb Daily Tribune: New calendar highlights Polish Catholic churches

Certified public accountant Thomas Sosnowski grew up in a heavily populated Polish neighborhood on Detroit’s east side.

As a youngster he remembers going to Mass on Sunday at St. Hyacinth Roman Catholic Church on McDougall Street in Detroit and often riding with his parents in subsequent weeks to the west side to visit some of the other gorgeous churches in predominately Polish neighborhoods.

Sosnowski has published a colorful calendar full of pictures of these beautiful churches along with pertinent information concerning their history. Like thousands of other people, he has fond memories of attending Mass at the churches that were decorated to the hilt, especially during the Christmas and Easter seasons.

He said he hired a couple of photographers to take photographs of the stunning churches because he is proud of his Polish heritage and Roman Catholic religion.

“Catholics who were raised in these predominately Polish neighborhoods appreciate the beauty of these phenomenal churches,” Sosnowski said. “I’m sure people who grew up in Detroit and moved to areas like Macomb County experienced the same feeling I did in going to Mass on Sundays and holy days and now would like their children to see how beautiful these places of worship were back then – even if it is just a photograph.”

Sosnowski said unfortunately some of the churches were sold and a few have been demolished. But he said many of the older Poles belong to parishes outside of Detroit but still go to Mass occasionally at some of the older churches.

“I did the calendar as a labor of love for the Polish community,” Sosnowski said. “These churches were jewels back in the day and the inside of these churches were as gorgeous as the outside.”

The days of the week and months of the year in the calendar are written in both English and Polish. Sosnowski has included images of the oldest 35 churches that were predominately Polish, including Holy Cross Polish National Catholic Church and Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Church in Hamtramck .

The colorful pictures of the churches are listed in chronological order according to the year they were founded.

Churches listed are Our Lady Queen of Heaven, St. Ladislaus, Transfiguration, St. Florian, Our Lady Queen of Apostles, St. Thomas, Immaculate Conception (Poletown), Resurrection, St. Stanislaus Kostka, St. Louis the King, Ascension (Warren), St. Hyacinth, St. Bartholomew, Immaculate Conception, Our Lady Help of Christians and St. Lawrence.

Also, Corpus Christi, Shrine Parish of St. Joseph (Pontiac), St. Albertus, St. Casimir, Sweetest Heart of Mary, St. Josaphat, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Stanislaus B & M, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, St. John Cantius, St. Hedwig, SS. Peter and Paul, St. Barbara, St. Helena, St. Cunegunda, St. John the Baptist, Sweetest Heart of Mary, Our Lady Queen of Angels, St. Andrew, Holy Cross Polish National Catholic Church, Our Lady Queen of Angels, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Andrew.

The calendars are $25 each plus another $3 for shipping and handling. For more information, call Mr. Sosnowski at 248-334-7522 or by E-mail.

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