POLAND‘S Krakow province created a page with painting of traditional Polish life for ‘the Polish Declarations of Admiration and Friendship’ for the United States.
At the end of World War I, Poland had just emerged from more than a century of domination under its powerful neighbours Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, Conway-Lanz said.
Poland’s modern independence day is Nov 11, 1918 — “Armistice Day”, which ended the war, he said.
Among President Woodrow Wilson’s famous fourteen points, which suggested a framework for postwar peace, point 13 called for an independent Poland.
But the war had also left Poland, and much of Europe, in a state of famine and destitution.
The US responded with the American Relief Administration, headed by future president Herbert Hoover.
“During and after World War I, Hoover directed the largest relief operation ever mounted in Europe,” saving millions from starvation, according to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Train loads of food were shipped to Poland in 1919, the institution says. And half a billion meals were given to country’s hungry in the years after the war.
The Poles did not forget.
Seven years later, still bracketed by unstable neighbours Germany and the Soviet Union — who would soon pounce again — Poland was eager to celebrate the American Sesquicentennial.
It was a heartfelt gesture. “Poles have always been crazy about America,” said library reference specialist Regina Frackowiak.
It was also a wise “example of cultural diplomacy”, Conway-Lanz said.
A committee to mark “4 Lipca”, the Fourth of July, was formed, and Kotnowski, president of the Poland’s American-Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was appointed to head it.
The committee quickly came up with the idea for the declarations.
The dedication was composed by writer and patriot Zdzislaw Debicki. Special blank pages were printed up and circulated throughout the country, to be signed and mailed back. They were bound into the books later, Frackowiak said.