NEWS from THE
POLISH AMERICAN CONGRESS
DOWNSTATE NEW YORK DIVISION
177
Kent Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.
11222
(516)
352-7125
FOR
IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
November
14, 2013
VETERANS DAY: NOT ONLY
AN AMERICAN HOLIDAY
Brooklyn,
N.Y. .. Frank
Milewski, president of the Downstate New York Division
of
the Polish American Congress (left), congratulates President Szczepan Janeczko
of
the Sea League (Liga Morska) for continuing his organization’s
annual observance
of
Veterans Day. In America’s Polish community, it is also celebrated as
Poland’s
Independence
Day.
America’s
older generation recalls Veterans Day was originally known as Armistice
Day.
It celebrated the end of World War I on November 11th, 1918.
For
the Polish people, however, it was something even more than just the end of
the
war. It was also the end of 123 years of suppression of their culture,
language
and
freedom. It was the degradation of their personal and national
identity.
From
1795 to 1918, the maps of Europe showed that a nation like Poland no
longer
existed.
The
territory of Poland was completely stolen away from the Polish people.
The
thieves
were the three hostile and ravenous neighbors situated around the country’s
geographic
borders.
Russia,
Prussia (now Germany) and the Austro-Hungarian Empire each banded
together
to swallow up the land of Poland and the Polish people who lived on it.
It
was no wonder that far away places like New York’s Ellis Island and Statue of
Liberty
became such an enticing and promising destination luring them to come
and
leave behind the heartless domination of their arrogant oppressors.
And
when these Polish emigrants arrived in America, they were once again
identified,
not as citizens of Poland, but citizens of Germany, Russia or Austria.
The
World War that ended in 1918 was an historic event in Poland’s history.
The
bloodshed was over. The nation was finally free and independent.
For
the purpose of international trade and its economic expansion, landlocked
Poland
gained access to the Baltic sea via ports like the Free City of Danzig
(Gdansk)
and Gdynia.
It
became a nation with a navy and a merchant marine. It was cause for
celebration
and formation of new organizations like Szczepan Janeczko’s
Liga
Morska.
But
the lifetime of the new nation was a limited one. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi
Germany
joined with the Soviet Russian Communists of Jozef Stalin in 1939
to
once again steal back the Polish nation for themselves.
The
newest act of thievery lasted another fifty years until the fall of
Communism
in 1989.
“In
those 200 years we were free for only twenty of them. We survived their
bullets
and bombs but we are still forced to keep fighting against a continuing
campaign
of malicious anti-Polish propaganda and false accusations,” said
Janeczko.
END
Contact:
Frank Milewski
(516) 352-7125
