DID YOU KNOW THAT….?

DID YOU KNOW THAT….?

Compiled by Robert Strybel, Warsaw Correspondent

2025 marks the 1,000^th anniversary of the coronation of Poland’s first monarch, King Bolesław Chrobry (Bolesław the Brave). In the year 1000, the deeply religious German Emperor Otto III went on a pilgrimage to the grave of martyr bishop Saint Wojciech (Adalbert) in Gniezno, Poland. Impressed by Poland’s hospitality, at a regal banquet, Otto was said to have briefly held his imperial tiara over Bolesław’s head signifying that the Polish duke deserved a royal crown.

During World War II, the nearly half-million-strong Home Army (Armia Krajowa or AK) was German-occupied Europe’s largest underground resistance movement. It was the military arm of an extensive Underground State comprising secret administrative structures including a judiciary, educational system, press and book publishing, cultural endeavors, law enforcement and arms manufacturing.

The Wilno school massacre of 1925 was Poland’s first-ever school shooting. Two eighth-graders, armed with revolvers and hand grenades killed two students, one teacher and themselves. The following three took place in Inowrocław (1936), and two more were recorded after the war in Kluczbork (2001) and Brześć Kujawski.

Quite a few US-born Polish Americans now have dual Polish and US citizenship, and others are applying. Dual citizenship enables them to freely travel without a visa, buy a home and other real estate and set up businesses not only in Poland but across the 27-nation European Union.

Occupied by three partitioning powers until 1918, Poland never created overseas colonies the way the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch did. But, seeing the prosperity of those nations, between the two World Wars Poland tried to make up for lost time by acquiring Madagascar from the French. Fortunately, that project never materialized, because colonialism was doomed to gradually disappear in the aftermath to World War II.

Poland’s Neminem captivabimus Act (full name: We shall incarcerate no-one without a court verdict) was a principle first formulated by King Władysław Jagiełło in 1425 – more than 250 years before England’s similar, but far more publicized Habeas Corpus Act. Although only some 18,000 Poles live in Iceland, in that sparsely settled country they constitute 5% of its population and are its single largest ethnic minority. Apparently that country’s harsh climate and bleak landscape do not attract many immigrants.

The many Polish surnames ending in -owski (inclduing Bączkowski, Krukowski, Mańkowski, Sękowski, Strzałkowski and Ząbkowski) were originally used by people of noble birth. Initially such a one was called Jan z Makowa (John of Makowa or Maków – John of Poppyville). but when naming fashions changed the preposition “z” was dropped and the surname took on adjectival form: Makowski.

The largest known batch of bigos, Poland’s iconic, national meat, sausage, sauerkraut, cabbage and mushroom ragoût, weighed in at 4,778 kilograms (1 kilogram = 2.2 lbs). It was prepared not in Poland, but in Brazil in 2019 by the Zebu Cattle Breeders Association.

The oldest document in Poland’s state archives is a 15.5 by 23 inch parchment from 1153 founding a Cistercian Monastery at Łekno near Wągrowiec. The project was funded by Polish nobleman Zbilut of Pałuki. After naming fashions changed, he would referred to as Zbilut Pałucki. The name of comic-strip character Joe Palooka is said to have been taken from Pałucki.

Merian C Cooper, a filmmaker involved in the production of the original 1933 King Kong film, in his younger days had been among the American volunteer airmen who had flown in the Kościuszko Squadron of the then fledgling Polish air force during the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik War.

Traditionally, most Poles eat four meals a day: pierwsze śniadanie/first breakfast (6-9 AM), drugie śniadanie/second breakfast (10-12), obiad/dinner (big main meal of the day – 1-5 PM)) and kolacja/supper (a lighter meal – 6-8 PM). Before World War II, a podwieczorek/afternoon tea was served in better-to-do homes.

A specially-woven silk-based bullet-proof vest created by Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik in 1901 saved the life of Spain’s King Alfonso XIII when he was shot at by a would-be assassin.

Nihil novi nisi commune consensu (nothing new without common consent) was the name of a constitutional amendment adopted in 1505 which marked Poland’s transition from a hereditary monarchy to a gentry republic. Although that may have had a democratic ring to it, in practice the gentry democracy weakened the country, because in exchange for their support successive kings had to constantly grant self-interested, squabbling nobles new rights and privileges at the kingdom’s expense.

The last Polish make of car produced in Poland was the Polonez compact in 2002. After passing US and European Union crash tests, the Fiat-designed 5-passenger vehicle could be exported worldwide.

Just before the outbreak of World War II, Poland had some 20,000 manor houses and palaces, of which only about 2,000 survived. The majority were destroyed or damaged in the war, allowed to deteriorate under the communists or ended up in the one-half of pre-war Poland annexed by Stalin’s Soviet Russia.

The Nobel Literary Prize was awarded to Poles on four different occasions: Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905), Władysław Reymont (1924), Czesław Miłosz (1980) and Wisława Szymborska (1996).

There would be no cellphones, MP3s or other e-gadgets were it not for the Czochralski process developed by a Polish chemist back in 1916. It was Jan Czochralski who created a method of processing semiconductor silicon to grow the crystals needed to manufacture today’s modern electronic devices.

Świętosława, the daughter of Poland’s first historical ruler, Duke Mieszko I, was the mother of Danish King Canute the Great (985-1035) who came to rule a North Sea empire comprising Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden.

Poland has three major seaports on the Baltic – Gdańsk, Gdynia and Szczecin. Smaller ports are found in Świnoujście, Kołobrzeg, Władysławowo and Elbląg.

The Pittsburgh-based Polish Falcons of America were largely instrumental in training some 23,000 Polish Americans to fight for Poland’s freedom in General Józef Haller’s Blue Army during World War I. They especially distinguished themselves by repelling the invading Bolsheviks in 1920 and preventing a Ukrainian take-over of the Polish city of Lwów.

Polish Archbishop Konrad Krajewski was has appointed by Pope Francis as his official almoner. He is in charge of the Church’s charitable activities and raising funds to finance them. That includes marketing souvenir parchments with the papal blessing which some people give as a First Holy Communion or wedding gifts.

Although the exchange rate fluctuates from day to day, as a rough rule of thumb one US dollar has been the equivalent of four złotys for quite some time. Currently, the Polish mint issues 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 groszy coins and 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 złoty banknotes. There are 100 groszy to a złoty.

To reach a cellphone in Poland from the US, dial 011, 48 (country code) and the nine-digit cellphone number. To dial a landline phone, a two-digit area code is added after the 48, for instance: 22 (Warsaw), 12 (Kraków), 58 (Gdańsk), 61 (Lublin), 52 (Katowice) and 71 (Wrocław).

Poland’s war-time ambassador to neutral Switzerland, Aleksander Ładosz, established a clandestine print shop which produced fake passports enabling thousands of Jewish refugees to flee Nazi-occupied Europe.

20 to 30 years ago, PolAms visiting Poland quickly noticed how few door-knobs there were in Poland of the kind then widespread in America. Instead, doors are opened with a “klamka”, a horizontal latch handle. Eventually, these door latches made it across the Atlantic and are now standard in the US.

Polish troops fighting Muslim fanatics and terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 21^st century, were backed by a long traditon going back to 1683. That was when Poland’s King Jan Sobieski led a multinational force that saved Europe from a Muslim take-over by routing Turkish invaders at the gates of Vienna.

“Nóżki w galarecie”, “zimne nogi” and “studzienina” are different names for the same dish: jellied pig’s feet or jellied pig’s knuckles. In the UK, the aspic dish is called pig-trotter jelly or pork jelly.

During the heights of the 1960s/1970s “Pollack” joke craze, Media Mogul Ted Turner (of i.a. CNN fame) made a fool of himself when he showed an audience that a “Polish mine detector” was someone plugging his ears and stamping the ground with his feet. Irate PolAms soon informed him that in fact in 1941 Polish Lieutenant Jan Kosacki invented a landmine detector that saved countless Allied lives during he war and its basic design was used by many world armies over the next 50 years. **In Poland, a youngster becomes a teenager (nastolatek or nastolatka) when he or she turns 11, not 13. That stems from a language difference between Polish and Englsh- In Polish, the “-naście” (teen) element is already added to “jeden” (one) and “dwa” to get “jedenaście” (eleven) and “dwanaście.”

PolAms who have fished while in Poland have often caught fish they couldn’t identify: leszcz (bream), płotka (roach), lin (tench), uklejka (bleak), rozpiór (rudd) and karaś (crucean). The Polish species they could readily recognize have included the perch, pike, trout, walleye and catfish.

Traditionally, most Poles eat four meals a day: pierwsze śniadanie/first breakfast (6-9 AM), drugie śniadanie/second breakfast (10-12), obiad/dinner (big main meal of the day – 1-5 PM)) and kolacja/supper (a lighter meal – 6-8 PM). Before World War II a podwieczorek/afternoon tea was served in better-to-do homes.