Posts by Gene Sokolowski
Big Bulletin: Polish Non-Complicity in the Holocaust
The information below is an analysis written by Jan Peczkis, who has analyzed over 1,800 works by Jewish and non-Jewish authors on historical and contemporary Polish-Jewish interrelations. We feature Jan’s database website on our Resources webpage in the section titled “Polish-Jewish Relations”. The article titled “Jan Peczkis’s 1,800 book reviews will improve your understanding of…
Read MorePoland and Russia: The Neighborhood of Freedom and Despotism in the X-XXI Centuries
(For professors, college students, teachers, and adults). In this scholarly work, Professor Andrzej Nowak reviews the history of Poland through the lens of its relations with Russia and presents the ideological beliefs Russia employed throughout its history to achieve its foreign policy objectives through interactions with Poland and the region’s Central and Eastern European states.…
Read MoreBetween Myth and Truth. Jewish Partisans During World War II
(For high school students, teachers, and adults). This 18-minute video reveals the facts behind the illusion that Jewish partisans engaged in armed combat against occupying German forces. [To read the speaker’s Polish narration in English, click on the CC (Closed Captions) icon on the bottom right of the video.] A partisan is a member of…
Read MoreOne Polish-American’s Fight to include the Genocide of Poles in Virginia’s High-School Curriculum
How Virginia’s educational, executive, and legislative authorities and the U.S Department of Education enabled the suppression of historical fact and ignored an embarrassing deception. Part 1 – Asking the Department of Education to Correct Falsified and Flawed Standards in Virginia’s 2015 Standards of Learning. March-June 2022. Gene Sokolowski’s efforts to correct Virginia’s curriculum began in…
Read MoreHow Heroic Polish Codebreakers set the Foundations for the Allies to Crack Enigma
(For high school students, teachers, and adults). This 12-minute video shows that the overall success against Enigma, and its contribution to the Allied victory over Germany, was the collaboration and cooperation between Poland, France, and England. However, the heart of this success was the contribution of the Polish code-breaking team of mathematicians Marian Rejewski, Jerzy…
Read MoreThe Righteous! How Poles Rescued Jews from the Holocaust
(For high school students, teachers, and adults). In response to anti-Polish bias in Holocaust scholarship, education, and popular culture, Polish journalist Grzegorz Gorny, together with well-known photographer Janusz Rosikon, published this book to explain what it really meant to save Jews in German-occupied Poland. The Righteous! tells the story of Poles rescuing Jews during the…
Read MoreFrom the Son of a Polish Miner to the Royal Court of Sweden: Fascinating Story of World’s most prolific Stamp Engraver
Czeslaw Slania (1921 – 2005) was a Polish postage stamp and banknote engraver who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was the most prolific of all stamp engravers with over 1,000 stamps to his credit. In addition to creating stamps for Sweden (300 different issues) and 29 other countries (the remaining 1,000 or…
Read MoreErnest Malinowski: The 19th-Century Engineer Who Defended Peru
Ernest Malinowski’s dream was to build a railroad that “will reach the clouds”. Born in Poland in 1818, Malinowski came to Peru when Spain was trying to hold on to its last colonies. Considered a hero in the Battle of Callao, Malinowski helped Peru maintain its sovereignty in a time of need. Malinowski would go…
Read MoreLTC Matt Urban: America’s Most Decorated Combat Veteran of World War II
Lieutenant Colonel Matt Urban, born Matthew Louis Urbanowicz, (1919 – 1995) shares with Audie Murphy the distinction of being the most decorated American combat veteran of World War 2. Earning more medals for valor than the legendary Murphy, he was awarded 29 U.S., French, and Belgian medals including the Medal of Honor. When Army officials…
Read MoreNew pioneering work examines the largely unknown role of the Polish church in saving Jews during the Holocaust
Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy: The Testimony of Survivors and Rescuers, Volumes 1 and 2, is a pioneering study by Ryszard Tyndorf and Zygmunt Zielinski of the mostly unknown rescue activities carried out by the Polish Catholic Church and its clergy in German-occupied Poland during the Second World War. It is…
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