Historic Photos about Poland with Context

Fat Thursday themed photos - people selling pączki (Polish donuts) in the street in Warsaw, 1934 - photographs by Adam Jankowski :):

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Today exactly 107 years ago after Poland regained independence Józef Piłsudski signed a decree granting voting rights to every citizen of Poland 21 years of age "regardless of gender".

Already in 1919 a first group of women was voted in into the Polish Parliament - they initiated laws concerning issues that were so far ignored by men like, for example, human trafficking of women and children.

(Second photo: a group of female lawmakers at the Polish Parliament)

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There was even a song about it...

Who let the women vote?
Who, who, who, who, who?
Who let the women vote?
Who, who, who, who, who?


Oh, yes - it was Piłsudski. Right. ;)


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I'm quite sure human trafficking was never ignored by men, even during the First Rzeczpospolita.

So why didn't they pass any laws then?

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I don't know the details, since I don't think we were taught at school about this, but that's what I've read on the official site of the President of Poland (it was posted during Andrzej Duda's reign) - it's written there that it was one of the issues "neglected by men". Knowing men and history - can't say I find it surprising. Prostitution of underage girls, for example, was apparently common and pretty normalised during the interwar period in Poland (there was a lot of poverty during that time).

This is the publication on the presidential site that I'm talking about - it was posted to celebrate the 100 years anniversary of that decree:

prezydent.pl/kancelaria/archiwum/andrzej-duda/aktualnosci/polityka-historyczna/100-rocznica-odzyskania-niepodleglosci-rp/aktualnosci/podwojnie-wolne-100-lat-praw-wyborczych-kobiet-%2C8274

In 1919 there wasn't even a fully unified Polish national law yet. Poland regained independence in November 1918 (only a couple of months earlier) after 123 years of partitions. Obviously, a whole lot of other specific laws weren't in place back then either but it doesn't mean that human trafficking was an issue "ignored by men".


Also, illegal abortion was a plague - some sources estimate 4 million in the whole Poland in the interwar period...

ciekawostkihistoryczne.pl/2015/10/13/cztery-miliony-skrobanek-cala-prawda-o-aborcji-w-przedwojennej-polsce/

I remember reading somewhere that there were certain circles within the Catholic Church in Poland that inrepreted the WW2 and horrible nazi occupation as God's punishment for the widespread sin of murdering unborn babies. As you can imagine it wasn't a very popular theory among Polish Catholics in general.

Possibly the Fatima story insinuated that, but mostly general sins, not only abortion.