Historic Photos about Poland with Context

Disgrace: 1968



polin.pl/en/march-68

Below: Edmund Neunstein, founder of the famous Polish bookshop and a library at 94 Allenby St. in Tel Aviv. He emigrated to Israel ten years before the anti-semitic campaign of 67-68. His bookshop became a legendary meeting and rallying point for Polish-Jewish post-March '68 emigrants.

Gemany-Poland: 1-0 (1974) - World Cup - exactly 50 years ago

The match went down in history under the name "Match on Water". A powerful cloudburst turned the pitch in Frankfurt am Main into one big puddle. The players played in abnormal conditions, and the stake of the match was to advance to the final of the World Cup. The hosts won after a goal by the "king of the field" aka "criminal" by Gerd Müller.

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Kania, there`s one more thing you should do. Keep the original thread in our memory by providing a link to it here. I will do it for you, just like I do to my "new" threads. :):):)
https://polishforums.com/history/pol-shorpy-photo-88175/

This reminds me scenes from the National Stadium a few years ago. The match was delayed and some bored fans entered the pitch and played chase games with stewards.

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Jewish Generals: 1939

Brigade General Wilhelm Orlik-Rückemann, pioneer of Poland's panzer forces, distinguished himself in Polish-Soviet war, commander of KOP in 1939.

Brigade General Bernard Mond, commander of Army Cracow's 6th Infantry Division, defender of korytarz pszczyński.

Brigade General Juliusz Zulauf, defender of Narew line and Warsaw Praga.

120,000 Polish Jews fought in the ranks on Wojsko Polskie in September 1939. Mentioning all of them would be impossible (I will mention one in more detail later). 7000 of them, including 100 officers, were KIA and names like Friedmann-Mieczysławski, Arnsztajn, Berenson, Putzman, Pariserberg, Fisch and Liebich are well known to Polish WW2 historians. Above you see photos of three Jewish September '39 generals.

13% of Polish army officers murdered by Soviets in Katyn Massacre in 1940 were of Jewish origin.

Lieutenant Jedwab: 1939

1st September 1939, dawn, a couple of kilometres from the German border, near Działoszyn. 19th German Infantry Division assaults the positions of 84th Poleski Rifleman Regiment. The commander of a heavy machinegun team is Henryk Jedwab, son of a very rich Jewish family from Kalisz. He knows he cannot afford the slightest weakness or his Polish colleagues will consider him a coward; he calmly waits for German infantrymen to advance close enough when he shouts 'Ognia!' and rain of lead stops the attacking Germans. That was the beginning of a distinguished military career that would see Jedwab receiving Fighter's Cross/Krzyż Walecznych (three times), Croix de Guerre (three times), Monte Cassino Cross and last but not the least Virtuti Militari (Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war).

His entire family was murdered by the nazis during the war. Once he was asked how many Germans he killed; he thought for a moment and said "More than my family had members... way, way more".

@GefreiterKania

Great post!!!

Yes, that`s the year when nationalist communists decided that Polish Jews were a threat to Poland. About 10.000 Polish Jews were forced to emigrate. They received a special document for their travel - one way "passport".
That was a huge loss to Polish culture.

Sea Towers: 2021



Two Polish maritime legends Dar Pomorza and ORP Błyskawica anchored in the Port of Gdynia. In the background the famous Sea Towers building.

The Gift of Pomerania aka Maritime Region. It was (still is) a gigantic ship. Majestic.

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Replaced by a newer and more majestic Dar Młodzieży aka The Gift of Youth:

here sailing under Sydney Bridge

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Called Harbour Bridge.

The size looks better in a video:

Geometric Centre of Europe: 1775

In 1775, royal astrologist and cartographer - Szymon Antoni Sobiekrajski - established the place where the lines connecting the furthest points of Europe connect. It turned out that the geometric centre of Europe is in Poland, near Białystok, in a small town of Suchowola.

There were of course multiple mountebanks, charlatans and other quacks who tried to convince people that the centre of Europe is actually in Austria, Belarus, Czechia, Germany, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, Slovenia or Lithuania, but we would do best to scoff at, ridicule and frown upon their ridiculous pseudo-scientific calculations.

I HAD to google that....of course....and that what I found...ahem....*drumroll*....the geographical centre(s) of Europe:



This map shows in red points some of the locations of claimants to the title of Centre of Europe: Dilove (Rakhiv, Ukraine), Krahule (or Kremnické Bane, Slovakia), Dresden and Kleinmaischeid (Germany), Toruń and Suchowola (Poland), Bernotai, or Purnuškės (Lithuania)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_midpoint_of_Europe

(...I never heard of Kleinmaischeid before, though, heh:)

We should our footie teams let play it out!

Ridiculous.


Laughable.


Preposterous.


Nonsensical.


We can agree to volleyball teams.

....Volleyball...really? 😯 Na ja...well...we got a polish trainer....so...😎

I love these unique pictures on Poland, keep them coming.

Why not?? The main chamber of the Polish Parliament - now nearly 100 years old.

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Has the parliament's building been used without changes for 100 years? There must've been some reconstruction after the war, unless it was completely reconstructed already. Must be well documented online, I'll read.

The main chamber - without changes since 1928. Other buildings in the complex were added, altered or had extensions built after WW2.

Bieszczady Mountains is still considered the wildest, least civilised part of Poland.

Locals who dwelled there but no more:

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Seeing them reminds me of Wild Wild West when pioneers settled America. Those bearded guys must have felt like them.

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I have always been fascinated with those workers who were sitting on the wall of their Gdańsk shipyard while on Solidarity strike in 1980 - as a youngster, I feared they might fall off and get hurt. I saw them in photos and films.
One banner says: Solidarity and equality for the whole nation

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Lech Wałęsa announces the end of Solidarity strike which brought amazing success for striking workers - they achieved their main objective in the clash with the communist regime - the creation of independent self governing trade union called Solidarity.

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Here, Lech Wałęsa speaks to the Congress after the collapse of communism in Poland in 1989. He started his speech with My, Naród, translated as We, the People.
Though I prefer We, the Nation coz that`s what he really said in Polish. He meant the Polish nation who abolished the abominable system against all odds.

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Because of today`s Independence Day, the public is allowed into the building until 4 pm.