IPNtv: Game for Independence. Poland.

(For high school students, teachers, and adults) During World War 1 (1914-18), called “The Great Warâ€, Poland did not exist as its territories had been annexed by Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary in 1795. As a result, in World War 1, Polish soldiers in the Russian army fought against Polish soldiers in the German and Austrian-Hungarian armies. At the same time, Poland’s three leading national figures, Pilsudski, Dmowski, and Paderewski, worked behind the scenes to establish Poland’s permanent independence. As the video shows, each pursued a different path, but it was Paderewski who won President Wilson’s respect and enabled the creation of the new Polish State, which was the 13th point in the 1918 Treaty of Versailles. Twenty-one years later, in 1939, an independent Poland was again erased from the map, this time by Hitler and Stalin, who both bitterly opposed Poland’s rebirth.