Congratulations to our friend Marek Zebrowski, Director of the Polish Music Center at the University of Southern California, concert pianist, composer and teacher, on his new album of show tunes by Polish composer Henryk Wars (1902–1977).
Born Henryk Warszawski, the composer shortened his last name to Wars; and upon emigrating to the United States in 1947, changed his name again by anglicizing the spelling to Henry Vars — which is how he is known in Hollywood.
This album marks the world premiere recording of songs by Vars. Created in cooperation with, and released by, the Polish Chamber Musicians’ Association, it features new versions of Vars’s popular works, many of which are held in the UNESCO-honored Henryk Wars Collection at the Polish Music Center. The music was arranged for string quartet and piano by Mr. Zebrowski, and is performed by him and the V4 String Quartet.
Before World War II, Warsaw was the cosmopolitan center of a lively artistic and intellectual life, frequently viewed as “the Paris of the East.” Vars, who lived and worked in the capital city, was Poland’s foremost composer of music for films and cabaret, with many popular hit songs to his credit. In his work during the prewar years, Vars was strongly influenced by American Jazz, and was the first to introduce American influences to Polish popular music.
After surviving the war, Vars emigrated to the U.S. He eventually established himself in Hollywood primarily as a film and television composer, as well as writing more “classical” music for orchestra and chamber ensembles — although in the U.S. he never reached the popularity he had known in Poland. Click here to learn more about Vars.
First page of the Polish Constitution adopted May 3, 1791. Image public domain via Wikipedia.
This Sunday, May 3, 2026, marks the 235th anniversary of the adoption of the Polish Constitution on May 3, 1791. This year also marks the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence adopted July 4, 1776.
Poland and America share not only the early adoption of a written constitution, but a profound love of liberty, freedom and the right of self-governance.
The Polish Constitution was the first written constitution in Europe, and the second in the world after the American Constitution — which had become effective on March 4, 1789 after ratification by nine states (the required 2/3 of the then-existing 13 states).
Based primarily on the governing principles of Great Britain and America, the Polish Constitution unfortunately lasted only a short while before it was abrogated by the Grodno Sejm in 1793. Two years later, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe in the final 1795 Partition among its rapacious neighbors Prussia, Austria and Russia.
A written constitution is only as good as the people it governs — if they don’t honor its terms, then it is no more than ink on paper. In speaking of the American Constitution, Founding Father John Adams said it this way: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Just a quick reminder that April is National Poetry Month! This year marks the 30th Anniversary of this month-long recognition of the importance of poetry in our lives. Launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month has grown into the largest literary celebration in the world. For three decades, it has created opportunities to read, share, and experience poetry — at home, in classrooms, in libraries and bookstores, and online — affirming poetry’s place as a vital part of our culture.
In our award-winning book Echoes of Tattered Tongues, author John Guzlowski weaves poetry and prose into a powerful whole, to tell the story of war refugee immigrants in America that reaches deep into the reader’s heart and soul in a way that pure prose could not do. This book won both the GOLD AWARD for POETRY from the Independent Book Publishers Association, and the MONTAIGNE AWARD for Most Thought-Provoking Book of the Year.
Amazon summarizes customers’ comments this way: “Customers praise this poetry anthology as a deeply moving collection that blends intelligence with emotion. The writing style receives positive feedback, with customers describing it as beautifully written and a work of lyrical prose. They appreciate the story’s approach, with one customer noting how it vividly portrays the aftermath of World War II.”
White stork (Ciconia ciconia) in flight. Photo avibirds.com
Check out the live stork cams at the end of this post!
In Poland, the storks returning each spring are a symbol of rebirth, good fortune, and deep cultural connection. The first stork seen returning to Poland this year was Krutek, a legendary resident of the Masurian Landscape Park. He was found on February 23, after his long, grueling flight from Egypt.
As a chick, Krutek fell out of the nest and was taken to the Stork Rehabilitation Center at the park. Equipped with a GPS transmitter, he travels south every year for the season. Although his GPS signal was lost for more than two months, the stork researchers now know that he spent the end of the year in the Sharm el-Sheikh region of Egypt. On January 4, the transmitter became active again, providing a completely new location: the Israeli town of Massu’a in the Jordan Valley. From there Krutek set off on his journey home, flying through Turkey and Bulgaria.
After several days of rest in Romania, the stork reached Ukraine on February 20, from where he began the final stage of his journey to Poland. He was found in a state of complete exhaustion by a roadside in Jedwabno in Szczytno County. Thanks to the quick reaction of the people who spotted him, he was taken to the Periodic Stork Rehabilitation Center in Krutyń, where he recovered. Read more about Krutek here. After a few days, Krutek was strong enough to be released into the wild, and he returned to his old nest. Click here for a short video of Krutek’s return to his nest.
One of the Photographer’s stunning photos showed this congregation of storks en route to their final winter destinations in Africa. Photo Grupa EkoLogiczna.
At the beginning of August 2024, stork researchers at the Mazovian NGO, EcoLogic Group (Grupa EkoLogiczna), went beyond a GPS transmitter to also attach a tiny camera of their own design to a stork they call “the Photographer.” The Photographer took stunning images of its high-sky exploits and the stops along the way. The first dispatch came from fields in Ukraine on August 11th, followed by images of meadows in Bulgaria, and by the end of August, a pit-stop at a rubbish dump in Turkey. After three long months without new footage, a dispatch finally arrived on December 17th from Kenya. Just a day later, tracking data showed the stork had continued its journey to Tanzania, far south of Egypt. Read more about the Photographer here.
Storks tend to return to the same nest year after year. They will typically add new material to the nest each year, and may repair or replace sections that were damaged while they were gone.
Live Stork Cameras — One of the more fun things to check out are the many live “stork cams” — live camera feeds of storks on their nests. Here are two such sites: Gmina Polanów, Poland Podgórzyn, Poland (2 cameras)
April 11, 2026 – when the nesting stork at Gmina Polanów stood up to do a little tidying in the nest, I glimpsed four eggs. Here’s hoping they all hatch!
April 30, 2026 – sometime last week, the stork cam at Gmina Polanów stopped transmitting. We’ve changed the link below to the two cameras at Podgórzyn. On Tuesday morning, April 28, when the nesting stork stood up, I saw four eggs. Let’s keep an eye on them and look forward to welcoming cute downy baby storks in a few weeks!
May 4, 2026 – just checked into the Podgorzyn stork cam, and was thrilled to see two little baby chicks! Looks like there’s still a couple of eggs to hatch.
May 5, 2026 – this morning when I checked in, I saw three little babies! One more egg to go.
Click the screenshot below to go to the live stork cams at Podgórzyn.
As we approach the culmination of Holy Week on Easter Sunday, we wanted to take a look at some Polish Easter traditions that we’ve posted about in the past. These include:
General Tadeusz Kościuszko. Image courtesy American Revolution Institute.
Our friends at the American Association of Friends of Kościuszko at West Point (AAFKWP) are hosting the 23rd Annual Tadeusz Kościuszko Conference at West Point on Friday and Saturday, April 24 & 25, 2026.
Kościuszko Monument on the grounds of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Photo: Wikipedia
Kościuszko is both a Polish and an American hero. Trained in Poland, he was, among other things, a brilliant military engineer who volunteered to fight on the side of the American colonists during the American Revolution. Click here for more info on Kościuszko’s life and contributions.
This weekend the Pilecki Institute will inaugurate its new New York City branch, located at 92 Greenwich Street. The public is welcome to attend the Saturday opening, beginning at 4 pm. The program for Saturday’s opening is as follows:
4:00 pm – Debate: “Lessons from Nuremberg for the 21st Century” Guests: Steve Crawshaw, Mark Kramer, Igor Lukes, Jack El-Hai, Krystian Wiciarz Moderator: John Cornell
5:30 pm – Refreshments An opportunity to learn more about the Institute – visit its reading room and digital archive, and explore the exhibition dedicated to the Ładoś Group.
6:30 pm – Hearing through the audio series “Courtroom 600. Witnesses of Nuremberg”
First episode: “Tadeusz Cyprian. An observer from Poland”.
7:00 pm– Refreshments
7:30 pm– A special occasion concert
Performance by Urszula Dudziak and her band.
The Pilecki Institute in New York will function as both an interdisciplinary research center and a cultural and exhibition space. This marks not only a new chapter in the Institute’s activities, but above all an opportunity to introduce the Polish historical experience into the global discourse on freedom and human dignity.
“As Poles, we value freedom and actively participate in shaping a modern future and the global development of the world. At the Pilecki Institute USA we will cultivate the memory of the consequences of 20th-century totalitarian systems, which in today’s climate of political tensions and the resurgence of authoritarian systems should serve as both a warning and an inspiration in the pursuit of peace and democracy. We are also open to cultural, diplomatic and promotional projects, creating a platform for cooperation and synergy”, explained Piotr Franaszek, CEO of the Pilecki Institute USA.
The Pilecki Institute is named for the heroic World War II Polish army officer Witold Pilecki, who volunteered for an almost certainly suicidal undercover mission as a prisoner at Auschwitz. We published Pilecki’s most comprehensive firsthand report on his Auschwitz mission in English for the first time, under the title The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery.
Captain Witold Pilecki
After the war ended, Pilecki volunteered for another undercover mission—this time he went back into communist-controlled Poland to provide information to his army superiors. He operated for about two years before he was arrested, tortured, given a show trial, and executed by the Polish communist government.
Here’s a fun article from Culture.pl reviewing planetary and space objects named after Polish artists, writers, musicians, composers and performers.
Mercury, image courtesy culture.pl
“We start off with the closest planet to the Sun. Mercury has a number of craters named after important Polish artists. In an area called the Shakespeare quadrangle, located at middle-latitude of the northern hemisphere of Mercury, there’s the Mickiewicz crater. It’s named after Poland’s eminent Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855) who created pivotal works like the epic poem Pan Tadeusz and the four-part poetic drama Forefathers’ Eve. Mickiewicz is equally as important to Poles as Shakespeare is to Englishmen so it seems that this crater is located in an appropriate region. The Mickiewicz crater has a diameter of 100 km and was given its name in 1976.
“That same year, the Chopin crater was officially named after the world-famous Romantic pianist and composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849). Among the most recognisable works by this amazing Polish artist are the dramatic Revolutionary Étude and the timeless Funeral March. The Chopin crater has a diameter of 131 kilometres and is located in the Michelangelo quadrangle, an area of Mercury in the planet’s southern polar region. One can imagine that the virtuoso Chopin wouldn’t have minded having a place named after him in an area whose namesake is the outstanding Michelangelo….”
Nicolaus Copernicus, image courtesy High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research.
What’s missing from the Culture.pl article is the brilliant Polish scientist and astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), who formulated a model of the universe that placed the sun rather than the earth at the center.
In 2015, the International Astronomical Union awarded the name Copernicus for 55 Cancri A (one half of a binary star system, the other being called 55 Cancri B), located in the constellation Cancer. The Copernicus star is orbited by five smaller planets called Galileo, Brahe, Lipperhey, Janssen and Harriot (designated Ab, Ac, Ad, Ae and Af, respectively). Click here for more details from Wikipedia.
The past month has brought severe cold and snow to the Eastern and Midwestern United States this year — but it can’t hold a candle to the winter of 1940 in bomb-battered Warsaw!
In her book The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt, author Rulka Langer describes the beginning of 1940, following the German invasion and occupation of Poland in the fall of 1939. She stayed in Warsaw with her elderly mother and two young children (George, age 8, and Ania, age 3), while her husband was in the U.S. in a diplomatic post. They were fortunate that their flat was not totally destroyed, as so many other buildings had been during the 4-week Siege of Warsaw in September. But there were many new challenges:
Chapter 32, pp. 412–417:
Warsaw, winter 1940; photo from The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt.Warsaw, winter 1940; photo from The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt.
The New Year brought many things.
In the first place, it brought a terrific cold wave. As a matter of fact, the temperature had already dropped below zero a few days before Christmas, but at first we all believed that this was just one of those cold spells that lasts for a week or so and is followed by slushy, misty days — the typical January flu weather. We were wrong.
Weeks passed and the terrific cold did not relent. For two full months the temperature never even reached the zero mark and twice fell to thirty below….
No one had much coal left and new supplies were not forthcoming — the cold wave had disorganized transportation facilities, we were told. And the Germans had requisitioned for their own use all the remaining coal stocks.
Warsaw, winter 1940; photo from The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt.
In our own house the temperature hovered around forty degrees Fahrenheit, and often in the morning fell to the freezing point. George’s hands and feet were frostbitten, Ania cried bitterly every night when she was undressed to go to bed. We all had bad coughs, but no one even tried to do anything about it. What is the use of medicine when you can’t get warm? And even though we kept our fur coats on all day long it didn’t do much good — the woodwork of the windows and doors was so shattered by bombs that it let all the drafts in. We sat around sniffling, noses red and running, hands and feet numb with cold. When the cold inside the apartment became unbearable we would go out into the streets. After an hour of walking in sub-zero temperature the house seemed almost warm…for a while….
Owing to transportation difficulties foodstuffs were beginning once more to disappear from the market. No milk, no eggs, no meat, no vegetables. Very soon our diet was reduced to black bread, potatoes and cabbage. But we weren’t really hungry, just underfed.
This was not the end of New Year’s gifts. Not by a long shot. The Germans were at last moving to set up their new order. Every day fresh decrees and regulations were issued by the dozens….
Soap had been regimented, all the stocks of tea and coffee confiscated. One day George came back from school, his blue eyes black with hatred; they had been told to turn in all their Polish textbooks. He was already pretty mad because he was not allowed to wear his school cap of which he was so proud. And now the textbooks…
The order was issued that all objects of art and antiques in private hands be registered with the German authorities, presumably to be shipped for safekeeping to Germany. Art objects from art galleries and museums were already packed and loaded on big trucks. Then word went around that the University was also being plundered….
One afternoon the hateful rag published an order that sent financial panic throughout the city. All hundred and five-hundred zloty bills had to be presented within a week to the Devisenstelle to be registered and stamped. Unstamped bills would be considered unlawful after February 1. The short term made the registration of all bills in circulation technically impossible, and thousands of people who still had some money left found themselves ruined overnight.
Warsaw in those weeks looked like a huge, ruined anthill in which ants are desperately trying to rebuild some kind of shelter for themselves, while someone with a malicious stick systematically stabs at their efforts….
Thanks to the Polish Embassy in Washington, D.C. for reminding us that this year, 2026, marks not only the 250th Anniversary of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence — but also 250 years of Polish-American friendship.
Image of General Tadeusz Kościuszko projected onto the Washington Monument as part of the America250 kick-off celebration. Photo courtesy of the Polish Embassy, Washington, D.C.
This photo, provided by the Polish Embassy, is a still from a video taken on January 4, 2026 at the National Mall. The illumination of the Washington Monument helped launch the America250 celebrations highlighting, among other stories, the contributions of General Tadeusz Kościuszko to the American Revolutionary War. The Embassy said, “We could not be more proud.”
General Tadeusz Kościuszko
The 280th Anniversary of Kościuszko’s birthday is fast approaching, on February 4, 2026.
Trained as a military officer in Poland with a specialty in military engineering, 30-year-old Kościuszko traveled to America to aid the American colonists in their war of independence against Great Britain. He was commissioned as a colonel in the Continental Army, and gained the reputation as a sharp officer with a genius mind for fortifications and terrain.
Kościuszko is best known for designing the fortifications at West Point that prevented the British from proceeding up the Hudson River. As quoted at allthingsliberty.com, Col. David Palmer wrote in his book The River and the Rock: The History of Fortress West Point, 1775–1783: “The post’s obvious strength deterred attack, the British never dared to try for it. . . . For there American revolutionaries and a Polish engineer had built a fortress quite ahead of its time—a 19th Century fortified complex in an 18th Century war.”
We recently visited the fabulous Palm Springs Air Museum, located at the Palm Springs Airport in California.
The Museum houses approximately 75 different military aircraft, predominantly from World War II, but also from the Korean and Vietnam Wars, as well as an F-117 Stealth Fighter. The planes are showcased in five themed hangars, where they are surrounded by extensive exhibits containing a treasure of memorabilia, ephemera, films, maps and a wealth of other information, some interactive. An additional selection of planes are parked on the tarmac just outside the hangars.
At this kid-friendly museum, you can tour the inside of a B-17 bomber, climb into a couple of sample cockpits, use one of several computer flight simulators, or book a flight on one of the Museum’s several warbirds. The Museum also hosts various lectures and events throughout the year.
Among its trove of resources, the Museum maintains a great library with original sources as well as books. In checking out their offerings, we were thrilled to see that they had a copy of our book 303 Squadron: The Legendary Battle of Britain Fighter Squadron from its first printing, catalogued and on their shelves!
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Congratulations to our friend Marek Zebrowski, Director of the Polish Music Center at the University of Southern California, concert pianist, composer and teacher, on his new album of show tunes by Polish composer Henryk Wars (1902–1977).
