Poland

Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia

Reposting from Sept. 16, 2009: September 17 could be a new date in US-Polish relations

On the 71 anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, we are republishing our Sept. 16, 2009 blog post, in which we asked the Obama Administration to consider the significance of the 1939 division of Poland by Hitler and Stalin before making the White House announcement on the cancelation of the ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Poland: “September 17 could be a new date in US-Polish relations

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Cold War, Poland, Russia

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Speech (in Polish) at Funeral Mass for Zofia Korbonska

TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA — A funeral Mass for Zofia Korbonska, a heroine of the Polish underground resistance against Nazi occupation, participant in the Warsaw Rising of 1944, political activist against Communist rule after World War II, and former Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service broadcaster, was held at the Our Lady Queen of Poland Catholic Church in Silver Spring, MD on Friday, September 10, 2010. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, spoke in Polish about Zofia Korbonska’s deep patriotism, extreme sacrifice, and political wisdom in her long struggle alongside her husband Stefan Korbonski to restore freedom and independence to their beloved Poland.

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Cold War, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia

Zofia Korbonska’s Funeral

A funeral Mass for Zofia Korbonska, a heroine of the Polish underground resistance against Nazi occupation, participant in the Warsaw Rising of 1944, political activist against Communist rule after World War II, and former Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service broadcaster, was held at the Our Lady Queen of Poland Catholic Church in Silver Spring, MD on Friday, September 10, 2010. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, spoke in Polish about Zofia Korbonska’s deep patriotism, extreme sacrifice, and political wisdom in her long struggle alongside her husband Stefan Korbonski to restore freedom and independence to their beloved Poland. View the text of Dr. Brzezinski’s speech in Polish

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History, Poland

Solidarnosc’s 30th Anniversary

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): It was thirty years’ ago, on 31 August 1980, that strikers from Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard forced the communist regime to recognize Solidarnosc as an independent trade union, release political prisoners, end media censorship and accept the right to strike. The regime later imposed martial law and Solidarity was forced underground before being…

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Cold War, International Broadcasting, Poland

Zofia Korbonska’s Obituary

Radio Coder Provided Information from German-Occupied Poland

During World War II, the British government made available to the various governments-in-exile from countries occupied by Nazi Germany, voice radio transmission facilities to broadcast to those countries, under the pretense that the transmissions originated in the
occupied countries. To pull this off, the radio stations needed daily news feeds from observers on the ground. From Poland, the news was provided by Zofia Korbonski, wife of Stefan, who was the Polish Government-in-Exile’s delegate and director of the Directorate of Civil Resistance, which coordinated non-military resistance efforts by the
Polish populace against the German occupying forces.

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Glos Ameryki, History, International Broadcasting, Poland

Zofia Korbonska Funeral Arrangements

The following announcement from the Stefan Korbonski Foundation includes information about the funeral arrangements for Zofia Korbonska, a World War II Polish Underground Armia Krajowa (AK) writer and coder of radio messages sent from Nazi-occupied Poland to the Polish Government-in-Exile in London and a former longtime editor at the Polish Service of the Voice of America in New York and Washington, DC. She passed away on August 16 in her home in Washington at the age of 95.

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Glos Ameryki, International Broadcasting, Poland, VOA

Zofia Korbonska, Polish Freedom Fighter and Voice of America Broadcaster, Dead at 95

Zofia Korbonska, Polish Underground resistance heroine and participant in the Warsaw Rising of 1944, passed away on the morning of August 16 in her home in Washington DC. More details to follow. In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible donations may be sent to the Stefan Korbonski Foundation, promoter of publications about the recent history of Poland. Stefan Korbonski Foundation c/o Ted…

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Poland

Katyn and Auschwitz Made Spring 1940 “Poland’s Most Cruel”

NEWS from THE POLISH AMERICAN CONGRESS
DOWNSTATE NEW YORK DIVISION
177 Kent St., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11222 – (718) 349-9689
_______________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 31, 2010

KATYN AND AUSCHWITZ MADE

SPRING 1940 “POLAND’S MOST CRUEL”

 

*********************************

Brooklyn, N.Y. …It was April 1940. Six months had already

passed since the invasion of Poland by the Germans and the

Russians the prior September. Most of the killing should have

stopped by now.

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Poland, Russia

“The Katyn Problem in Contemporary Russia”

Professor Aleksandr Guryanov’s presentation [translated from Russian] from the Katyn observances at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress, May 5, 2010. This is sent with permission of Professor Mark Kramer [translator] and the Harvard University Cold War Archives. It can be reprinted or reposted with acknowledgment. “The Katyn Problem in Contemporary Russia” Aleksandr Guryanov, “Memorial” Society Esteemed Mr. Chairman and Ladies and…

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Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia

Obama Failed to Notice the Hitler-Stalin Pact but Remembers The Elbe Anniversary 

President Obama announced his decision to scrap the U.S. missile defense system in Central Europe on September 17, 2009, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. He then signed an arms control agreement with Russia in Prague, the prime site of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. On the day of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s funeral, he…

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Poland, Russia

Obama Plays Golf After Skipping Polish President’s Funeral

Obama’s Public Diplomacy Katabasis in Poland President Obama may very well kiss the Polish American vote good bye after committing yet another public diplomacy blunder which gave Vice President Biden, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee A. Feinstein and some Congressional Democrats plenty of reasons to be pulling their hair out in utter frustration over his insensitive behavior toward an important…

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Poland

Obama Cancels Trip to Poland

Scoring public diplomacy points, President Medvedev flew to Poland to attend President Kaczynski’s funeral, and the Poles used a plane to fly the bodies of Kaczynski and his wife from Warsaw to Krakow. The White House Blog The President’s Statement on Poland Posted by Jesse Lee on April 17, 2010 at 03:18 PM EDT The President releases a statement on…

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Poland

Obama to Attend Kaczynski’s Funeral

The White House has announced that President Barack Obama will attend Sunday’s state funeral for Polish President Lech Kaczynski, killed last week in a plane crash. Mr. Obama’s press secretary says he will travel to Krakow to express the depth of U.S. condolences to an important and trusted ally. More from VOA Sourced from: Opinia.US

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Poland

America Mourns with Poland – U.S. Embassy Warsaw

April 11, 2010 America Mourns with Poland – U.S. Embassy Warsaw American officials and Americans around the world are expressing their condolences to Poland. After his phone call with Prime Minister Donald Tusk, President Barack Obama said, “President Kaczynski was a distinguished statesman who played a key role in the Solidarity movement, and he was widely admired in the United…

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