Poland is a country located in Central Europe. Its surface area 312,683 sq. km (120,727 sq. miles) and it has a population of 38 million inhabitants. Administratively, Poland is divided into forty-nine vivodeships (provinces). Its border is 3,538 km (2,198 miles) long. History and Politics: The landmark in process that led to the creation of the Polish state was the adoption of Christianity in 966 by Prince Mieszko I. Mieszko united the Slavonic tribes which inhabited the area roughly corresponding to Poland's present territory. His son, Boleslaw Chrobry, consolidated the new state and became its first king, crowned in 1025. His successors made up the Piast dynasty, which ruled till the 14th century, at first from Gniezno, and later from Krakow. After its demise, the Polish throne went to the Lithuanian Jagiellonian dynasty. Poland and Lithuania were joined by a personal union, superseded by a real union in the 16th century. After their victory over Teutonic Order, the Jagiellonians began to expand their state eastwards and become the most powerful ruling family in continental Europe; their dominions included Poland, Lithuania, Bohemia and Hungary, and from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Jewish links with Poland are as old the Poland state: (paradisum judeorum) in the 10^th century Jews came to Poland as merchants; the oldest records of Jewish settlements date back to the 11^th century. During the Crusades and as a result of persecution in Western Europe, Jews came to Poland from Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Turkey. In 1264 Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Kalisz. Granted Jews separate privileges called The Kalisz Statutes, which became the legal foundation for their presence as a community in Poland. The privileges were extended by King Casimir the Great, and later by other Polish rulers. Thus, the Jewish population enjoyed the rights to freely practice their religion, form communities and create social institutions to independently deal with their own problems. In the 16^th century a Jewish parliamentary body (Vaad Arbaa Aratzot) was established in Lublin to become an autonomous representation of Polish and Lithuanian Jewry. Jewish religious and secular cultures in Poland started to flourish. Talmudic academies, which would come to be well known throughout Europe, were founded, rabbinical literature thrived. In addition, Jewish scientists were active in all fields of secular knowledge, including medicine, mathematics, and astronomy. Further development of non-religious sciences was connected with Haskalah, or the Jewish Enlightenment Movement, which propagated emancipation and assimilation into the country’s social and cultural life without, however, rejecting or opposing the Jewish religion or traditions. The Hasidic movement was born in the eastern part of the Polish Commonwealth in the 18^th century. It was founded by Israel ben Eliezar (Baal Shem Tov) of Podole. Assimilation tendencies persisted throughout the 19^th century, but the second half of the century also saw the emergence of the Zionist movement. Many political parties appeared and continued their activity during the inter war period. World War II and the Nazi occupation uprooted the Jewish population from Polish soil and put an abrupt halt to the development of Jewish culture in Poland. In 1939 Poland stood up to Hitler and was defeated after a short struggle and Soviet invasion from the East. In spite of a double occupation, poles created the structures of an underground state and a resistance movement. A government in exile resided in London and Polish soldiers fought on almost all fronts of the war. 11 million citizens of Poland lost their lives between 1939 and 1945. How Could 5,000,000 Be Killed and Forgotten?
After WWII Poland was sold to Soviet domination, after The Yalta accords signed by the allied powers imposed new frontiers on Poland coupled with Soviet domination and the communist system. (under Soviet domination to 1989 about 1 million Polish citizens lost lives)  Poles, however, did not accept the new, totalitarian order. A series of protests culminated in 1980 with a nation-wide wave of strikes which opened the way for creation of the independent trade union "Solidarity". Even the imposition of martial law in December 1981 was not able to stop the process of change and arrest the decay of the communist system. After election held as a result of the "round table" talks in 1989 the opposition entered Parliament, and September 1989 the first non-communist government was formed.

Facts –

World War II began on September 1, 1939 when Hitler’s Germany treacherously invaded Poland from West, South and South and Stalin’s Soviet Russia, just as treacherously, invaded Poland from the East on September 17, 1939.

On August 23, 1939, Hitler and Stalin joined hands in the secret Ribentropp – Molotov Pact to invade Poland and to dismember her territory western half to incorporated into German and eastern half and Baltic states into the Soviet Union. This doomed the heroic resistance by the Polish army.

The Polish population suffered both, under German and the Soviet occupation and terror.

The Nazi reign of terror the extermination of over six millions Polish Citizens included three millions Jewish Poles, and three million Christian Poles.

Only in Poland (not Holland nor France or Denmark, etc.) for helping a Jew in any way was only one punishment meted out by Nazi Germans: DEATH  PENALTY. (Whole Polish families died when caught that way. Case similar to Anne Frank's where Duch family caught sheltering her survived and was able to tell the story could not happen in Poland!)

The Polish population under German occupation organized the largest underground “Home Army” in Europe, which in 1944 fought for 63 day in the heroic Warsaw Uprising, while the Red Army stopped on the Vistula River and waited until helpless Warsaw died.  Warsaw could have been one of the first European capitals liberated; however, various military and political miscalculations, as well as global politics — played among Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) — turned the dice against it.

Poles that escaped German occupation formed in Britain the third largest allied army. Polish pilots were famous in the Battle of Britain. In 1941-42, every third RAF bomber crew was Polish.

The Soviet reign of terror began with the 26,000 POWs (officers, policemen and other professionals) ordered by Stalin and the Politburo on March 5, 1940 and carried out by the NKVD (Later renamed the KGB). They were each individually shot in the back of the head. This is known as the Katyn Forest Massacre.

Over one million Poles, men, women and children, were sent by cattle trains to Siberia and Kazakhstan, in murderous condition, for slave labor, in gulags and state farms where nearly half of them perished.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler’s Germany treacherously attacked their former ally and almost succeeded. It caused the USSR great devastation and millions in dead and wounded.

Soviet Russia was deathly threatened by Nazi Germany. It reluctantly formed an alliance with Britain, Poland and other western allies, which were later joined by the US after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

After signing an agreement with the Polish government in-exile, the Russians freed the emaciated Poles from prisons and gulag, and let General Wladyslaw Anders form a Polish army on Soviet soil. Later, after evacuation to the western war theater, it gained world-wide attention by joining the allied forces and by capturing the abbey at Monte Cassino, which was open door to Rome.

The Red Army, which eventually drove the German back to Berlin, did not liberate Poland and Easter Europe, but brought in the communist terror and enslavement.

In 1980 the Polish workers, inspired by the visit the Polish Pope, struck the Shipyards in Gdansk, and were the first in Soviet block to organize the independent labor union, “Solidarity”. This began the peaceful revolution against communism, which ended in the dissolution of the “Evil Empire.”

All these facts and many more should be remembered!!!

Sources:

Letter to Michigan Legislators and Media by Paul Odrobina, President Polish American Congress, Michigan Davision. 5/20/2005.

http://www.warsawuprising.com - Web site, which is dedicated to all those who fought for their freedom in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 as well as all those who, as civilians, perished in the effort.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising  - http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/wgupris.htm

"Polish Campain 1939" website is devoted to the defensive war among Poland an the united power and Nazi Germany and communist Soviet Union in 1939 - http://www.1939.pl/english.htm

This site is connected to 'A Forgotten Odyssey', a recent documentary film by Jagna Wright and Aneta Naszynska. It deals with the forgotten tragedy of 1.7 million Polish citizens of various faiths and ethnicities (Polish, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish) deported from eastern Poland (Kresy) in 1940-42 to special labour camps in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Soviet Asia. - http://www.aforgottenodyssey.com/gallery/

Edith Stein, saintly Carmelite. - http://www.ewtn.com/faith/edith_stein.htm