Jeannie Opdyke Smith shares her mother’s incredible journey of courage and resilience. A true story of how one Polish Catholic teenager saved over a dozen Jews during the Holocaust. Irene’s story became a Broadway play in the nationally acclaimed production “Irena’s Vow” and her memoir, “In My Hands” is used in classrooms across the country. . The Israeli Holocaust Commission named Irene one of the Righteous Among the Nations. She was presented with the Israel Medal
The Polish Scout Troop Kaszuby in Seattle is celebrating the World Thinking Day observed by the Girl Scouts of the USA since 1926 on or around February 22. This year, the troop invites all current and former scouts and their parents to a Holy Mass at the Polish Parish in Seattle that will also have a special intention for Martha Golubiec. Mrs. Golubiec, who died last month, was the founder of the Polish Scout Troop
The Polish Genealogical Society of America (PGSA) invites you to the webinar Working with a Polish Researcher presented by Dorena Wasik. This is an introduction for people who would like to start looking into their family roots in Poland. Besides this webinar, you can also watch the very interesting YouTube video Polish Genealogy produced by the GenalogyTV. It is another 101 intro to the subject that I found very informative and encouraging. GenealogyTV’s Connie Knox
The book for the meeting is Matka Polka by Anne Applebaum and Paweł Potoroczyn. It is an extensive interview that Applebaum agreed to do with Potoroczyn, a friend she shares many common interests with. Applebaum is a Pulitzer winning author (for Gulag: a History), who published several books, essays and articles about history and politics of East European countries. The book is the first one where she discusses her life, decisions, political interests and her
Children’s Film Festival Seattle 2021 and NW Film Forum present the movie Triple Trouble / Tarapaty 2 (2020, 87′) directed by Marta Karwowska. Triple Trouble is a family (age 9+) heist and who-done-it movie featuring adventures of teenager detectives Julka and Olek familiar to the audiences from the 2017 Double Trouble / Tarapaty movie. This time the duo tries to discover who stole a Monet painting from a museum in Poznań while also dealing with
UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee invites you to a lecture Interhuman History: How Magdalena Grzebałkowska Rewrites the Aftermath of World War II in “Poland 1945: War and Peace” by Prof. Beth Holmgren. Magdalena Grzebałkowska, 48, is an award winning writer and a reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza daily. The book was a finalist to the 2016 Nike Polish literary award and won the Gazeta Wyborcza Reader’s Award. The book is available on Amazon and Barnes &
This concert by Radek Nowicki Quartet is a part of The Great Improvisations series presented online by the Jazztopad Festival in partnership with Polish Cultural Institute New York. The quartet includes Radek Nowicki (sax), Michal Tokaj (piano), Michał Jaros (bass) and Michal Miśkiewicz (drums). Radek Nowicki is a tenor and baritone saxophone player with his own, characteristic tone. He performed with Tomasz Stańko and Zbigniew Namysłowski and is the winner of many jazz awards. The
Seattle-Gdynia Sister City Association (SGSCA) is preparing a presentation about Martha Golubiec’s contributions to the SGSCA and its programs. She was a co-founder of the organization. Please share your pictures, stories, fun facts, video clips and other memories that can be used in the tribute to Martha.More: Please contact the SGSCA President, Zbigniew Konofalski. Read Martha’s obituary.
Tips from Polish community members: if you want to get vaccinated quickly and don’t mind a trip across the passes, go to a COVID-19 mass vaccination site in Wenatchee or Kennewick. Wenatchee opens signups on Sundays for service M-F, and typically you can get an appointment a day or two ahead. Kennewick has appointment slots available all the time, even on the same day.More: WA mass vaccination sites
The PHA Election Committee kindly asks the PHA members who haven’t voted yet to send their ballots back as quickly as possible. For the PHA elections to be valid, at least 50% members need to cast their votes. The following is the appeal from the electoral commission: Dear Members of the Polish Home Association, We thank all of you who already mailed in the ballots. At the same time, we would like to kindly remind
This event was rescheduled to April 27, 2021. The UW Henry Jackson School of International Studies presents a lecture Anti-Gender Politics And Right-Wing Populism in Poland by Elżbieta Korolczuk. Dr. Korolczuk is an Associate Professor of sociology at the Södertörn University in Stockholm and American Studies Center at Warsaw University. The European Union has set impressive standards on gender equality, providing legal frameworks for equal pay, investing in work/life balance and childcare, and allowing for
The Kosciuszko Foundation online programs present a webinar in the Polish Contemporary Literature series My Country’s Other Names: Poland’s New Wave Poets of the 1970s. The event includes talk by Jarosław Anders followed by a discussion moderated by Dr. Małgorzata Pośpiech. In the late 1960s a new poetic formation emerged in Poland, known as “New Wave” or “Generation 1968”. The talk will cover works by Adam Zagajewski, Stanislaw Baranczak, Ryszard Krynicki, and Ewa Lipska. Jaroslaw Anders
Austin Polish Society invites you to a meeting in Polish with Jarosław Abramow-Newerly, an author, playwright, composer, songwriter and one of a co-founders of the famous STS student cabaret. He moved to Canada in the 1980s and then shared his time between Warsaw and Toronto. His notable books include “Lwy z mojego podwórka” about his boyhood during the WWII and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and “Nawiało nam burzę” about fates of extended Polish-Ukrainian family from
The We Are The History Keepers! workshop on preserving history, both for families and organizations, changes its formula and switches to shorter, 2-hour monthly sessions tackling a single topics . These will be all online interactive sessions on a Saturday before noon. The first session in the series covers the basic topic of What to Throw Away and What to Keep. This is how the organizers describe the content of this session: Start the new
This local club is for readers who would like to discuss Polish literature in English. The book for the meeting is The Doll / Lalka by Bolesław Prus, first published in 1877-79. This work is regarded as the greatest Polish realistic novel, painting a great panorama of the Polish society of the time. Some, including Nobel prize winner Czesław Miłosz regarded it as the best Polish novel. Ostensibly a love story of a self-made rich
The Kosciuszko Foundation accepts applications for their very popular program Teaching English In Poland (TEIP). Normally, this involves a teaching position at a summer camp in Poland and in fact the camps are expected to be run this year as well, assuming the pandemic conditions will allow that. In addition, there is the Online TEIP Program that started in 2020 and now is being extended through June 2021. Application deadline is March 15, 2021. Below
Local artist Barbara Niesulowski will create oil pastel portraits of your beloved ones! Oil pastels are pastels that do not shed dust as regular ones do, they have brighter colors, too. Please see below for examples The price for a size 11″×14″ portrait is $150 You can send photos of your beloved subjects via email to Basia Niesulowski. She paints from your picture but can “dress” your child in any costume you can imagine. Please
The Embassy of Poland in Washington, DC and The Bender JCC association invite you to the 2019 documentary movie Of Animals And Men directed by Łukasz Czajka. Of Animals and Men tells the true story behind the 2017 feature film, The Zookeeper’s Wife. Two years after the release that movie, which portrayed Antonina and Jan Żabiński’s extraordinary rescue operation during the WWII, this fascinating documentary sheds new light on their story. The couple saved hundreds
Martha Golubiec, a longtime member of the Polish community, died on January 22, 2021 in Seattle after a long illness. Bursting with energy and ideas, she was a community pillar since the 1960s till recently. During this time, she initiated, spearheaded or contributed to many of the developments that were crucial to the community centered on the Polish Home in Seattle, now the Polish Cultural Center Dom Polski. She also worked tirelessly to elevate standing
The Consulate General of Poland in Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival present the special Holocaust Commemoration Day with the movie My Name Is Sara screening for four days, from January 25 to 28, and the discussion panel on January 28. The movie directed by Steven Oritt and starring Zuzanna Surowy in the title role is based on a survival story of 13-years old Sara Góralnik. The Q&A panel with Sara Góralnik’s