Glen Head, N.Y. .. Mietek (Mike) Madejski (left) and Wanda Lorenc (center) presented a copy of Andrew Hempel’s “Poland in World War II” to each of the students graduating from the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Polish Supplementary School affiliated with St. Hyacinth’s parish in Glen Head, N.Y. Here they are shown displaying the book to Janusz Grabarz, director of the school.
Mr. Madejski and Mrs. Lorenc were part of the Polish underground resistance (Armia Krajowa) and fought against the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising of August, 1944 where more than 200,000 Poles were killed.
The 1944 Uprising is often confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April, 1943 in which the Germans killed 20,000 Jews.
The books are being distributed as part of the Polish American Congress Holocaust Documentation Committee project to correct the constant stream of misinformation and false accusations against the people of Poland in World War II.
Nowhere else is Holocaust history as distorted and misrepresented as it is about Poland, according to the committee.
Madejski is president of the New York Chapters of the Polish Veterans of World War II (SPK) and the Polish Home Army Veterans. Both organizations are affiliated with the Polish American Congress, the umbrella organization of the Polish American community.
During the Warsaw Uprising of August, 1944, Madejski was a member of the Scout Troop Zoska. At the height of the battle, the scouts of Zoska reached the Gesiowka German concentration camp inside the city and liberated 350 Jewish prisoners.
For their heroic act, Israel has honored the Polish scouts of Zoska at its Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem.
There, those who went out of their way to rescue Jews during the Holocaust are remembered as “Righteous Among the Nations.” While many individuals from various countries are given this distinction, by far the largest number of them are from Poland.
Madejski was able to evade capture when the Armia Krajowa was forced to surrender after two bloody months of fighting the Germans. However, Mrs. Lorenc was taken prisoner and sent to the Ravensbruck and Spandau concentration camps.
While in Spandau, a German SS guard beat her and kicked her in the face just for giving a piece of bread to a Jewish prisoner in that camp.
Her mother and father and her brother are also honored by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among the Nations.” At the time the Germans were liquidating the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, her family was able to rescue twelve Jews from there and helped them survive to the end of the war.
As Catholics, Madejski and Lorenc are deeply troubled by the “anti-Polish prejudice ” they say pervades “so much of today’s reporting about the Holocaust.”
The reason they remain as active as they are in promoting pro-Polish projects like the distribution of history books is because they want everyone to get the complete truth about this tragic period in which so many Americans were also killed.
What they resent most are “the continual attempts to label Polish Catholics like us as anti-Semites.”
Contact: Frank Milewski (718) 263-2700 – ext. 105
Glen Head, N.Y. .. Mietek (Mike) Madejski (left) and Wanda Lorenc (center) presented a copy of Andrew Hempel’s “Poland in World War II” to each of the students graduating from the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Polish Supplementary School affiliated with St. Hyacinth’s parish in Glen Head, N.Y. Here they are shown displaying the book to Janusz Grabarz, director of the school.
Mr. Madejski and Mrs. Lorenc were part of the Polish underground resistance (Armia Krajowa) and fought against the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising of August, 1944 where more than 200,000 Poles were killed.
