“The narrator in A Treatise works year-round as a caretaker at a forest resort, his salary paid by the absent and mysterious owner, Mr. Robert. The novel begins with a plaintive and absurd question: “You’re here to buy beans, sir? From me?” The caretaker is ostensibly addressing an out-of-season visitor, but the interlocutor’s presence is minimal. The […]
The people of Poznan have a good reason to be proud. Their city is the home of world's best shopping, art and business center called Stary Browar (Old Brewery). This 19th century building before the war had been the leader among the best Polish breweries. After the war, it was nearly ruined by the post war socialists and killed after the political transformation by the new communist authorities. Fortunately, at the beginning of the third millennium Poznan's Old Brewery was rejuvenated and rehabbed to a completely new shape.
During his time as a foreign correspondent for the Polish Press Agency, Ryszard Kapuscinski amassed the type of credentials most journalists only dream of – also the kind few would actually want to pursue. We are told in the about-the-author section of The Shadow Of The Sun (2001) that he witnessed 27 coups and revolutions […]
Hel is considered to be one of the most picturesque Polish towns, located on the 18.6 mile-long promontory jutting out into the Baltic Sea. The first settlers arrived here a few centuries B.C. Written records indicate that Hel was a fishing settlement, engaging in the herring trade in the 2nd century A.D. Today Hel harbors tourist boats and private yachts next to traditional fishing cutters.
The in-person interviews took place at the two high-rise apartments he owned, in succession, in Friendship Heights, just northwest of the D.C. line in Maryland. The encounters took years off my life. I could not wish otherwise, then or now. Throughout the time I was meeting with him about the prospective biography, Karski chain-smoked filterless […]
[In book you mention brothers: Adam, second brother to whom you were not close. Stephen, third brother, had son involved in black market and thus was dangerous. Accurate? You give Marian's name and age.] Jan Karski: “First, I don’t remember what I wrote. I didn’t have any brother by the name of Adam. I did […]
The true story of Polish American Craig “Gator” Bodzianowski, the “up-and-coming” cruiserweight boxer who, after losing part of one leg in a motorcycle accident, is told his boxing career is over. In true hero fashion, Gator makes one of the greatest professional sports comebacks ever, culminating in a WBA World Championship Fight. By now, most […]
[On responding to Pro-Soviet Brits by telling of his own experience in a Soviet POW Camp] "No, I didn't. I spent in the Soviet Union no more than five or six weeks, and as a matter of fact at that time I never was telling that I was persecuted by them. On the contrary: We […]
[On another Goering encounter] Jan Karski: "This must have been 1934 or 1935. At that time, Polish-German relations very good. Exchange of students. I was in the group of Polish students who went to Germany on the Parteitag– every year there was Parteitag which means 'day of the Nazi party.' Tremendous hullabaloo. Tremendous hall, I […]
Jan Karski: "At Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow, I enrolled after high school in 1931. Beginning with the second year, I studied in two faculties: Law and diplomatic studies, and got two M.A.s. Diplomatic sciences in 1935, my last year of my studies, the director and professors organized tremendous affair, to which were invited all […]
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