The Polish American Encyclopedia, edited by James S. Pula, is now available.

At least nine million Americans trace their roots to Poland, and Polish Americans have contributed greatly to American history and society. During the largest period of immigration to the United States, between 1870 and 1920, more Poles came to the United States than any other national group except Italians. Additional large-scale Polish migration occurred in the wake of World War II and during the period of Solidarity’s rise to prominence.

The encyclopedia features three types of entries: thematic essays, topical entries, and biographical profiles. The essays synthesize existing work to provide interpretations of, and insight into, important aspects of the Polish American experience. The topical entries discuss in detail specific places, events or organizations such as the Polish National Alliance, Polish American Saturday Schools, and the Latimer Massacre, among others. The biographical entries identify Polish Americans who have made significant contributions at the regional or national level either to the history and culture of the United States, or to the development of American Polonia.

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From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette: The Next Page / Pittsburgh doctor, Polish warrior: The Jerzy Einhorn story

A proud old man died the other day and a window on history closed.

Jerzy Einhorn was 92 when he passed away at his Mt. Lebanon home on July 4.

A prominent doctor in his native Poland in the 1960s, he came to the U.S. in 1967 and became an endocrinologist at Montefiore Hospital, where he treated thousands of patients and directed the thyroid screening program. He also established health clinics in Hazelwood and Greenfield and taught at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Einhorn leaves behind a wife and three children from two marriages. He also leaves behind a back story from his youth straight from the movies — a tale full of Nazis, narrow escapes and dangerous liaisons in occupied Poland during World War II.

A Polish cavalry officer, he fought the Germans in 1939 and then served with the Polish underground Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising, a battle that ended with the Nazi annihilation of the city in 1944.

He won military decorations, escaped captivity multiple times, twice crossed the Eastern Front, swam the Vistula River and ended up imprisoned and beaten by the Soviet secret police in 1945.

He lost his father — forced to dig his own grave before being shot — and a sister, sent to a concentration camp with her two children.

His story is one of millions from that time, but unlike many others, he wrote it all down in a memoir, “Recollections of the End of an Era,” published in Polish in 2000 and translated into English in 2005…

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From A Polish Son: Wesley Adamczyk Speaks the Truth about Katyń

Chicago Polish-American author Wesley Adamczyk invited me to his home on July 14, 2011, to see his exhibition. As I make my way in, he advises me to watch out for the electrical cords running to a strategically placed floor lamp in his living room. He has positioned several lamps to shine on his collection of memorabilia and publications related to the Katyń Massacre and the deportation of Poles to Siberia at the beginning of World War II.

“Some of my collection I have displayed on the walls and tables,” he says, “and some things I am going to display through multimedia. This is a display of a performance piece titled Two Christmas Eves,” he indicates, pointing to a poster, “one in Poland shortly before the war, one in Siberia in 1941, after my family and thousands of other Polish people were deported to Siberia in 1940.” The drawings contrast the cultured family life Adamczyk knew as a child with the brutality of the Soviets…

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From the Cosmopolitan Review: Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout, a review by Margaret Butler

Lauren Redniss has written a very modern portrait of this celebrated couple that is a treat to read. From the custom type created by the author to the layout of the sparse text to the illustrations, the author presents a biography that captures not only the linear progression of the lives of these scientific giants, but connects their work to its effects in the world. “Radioactive” is a work of art.

One key to the success of this book is the incorporation of numerous quotes of Marie, Pierre, and others. Actual words help the reader relate to the Curies and to their time. In addition, the accounts and testimonies of other sources linked to the Curies’ work help the reader understand the magnitude of their discoveries. This is especially evident in chapter 5 “Instability of Matter” in which Marie’s thesis that radiation may inhibit malignant cell growth is followed by the 2001 testimony of a cancer patient being treated for Non-Hodgkins lymphoma with a thermoplastic radiation mask. The same chapter included the development of the atom bomb, the Manhattan Project, a copy of declassified FBI files, and the testimony of a Hiroshima survivor.

As the story of Pierre and Marie Curie progresses chronologically through the nine chapters of the book, the author mirrors the characters’ personal and professional lives with other seemingly random events…

One underlying theme of the book is the remarkable partnership of individuals who, working together, discover something new. At the turn of the century, an amazing confluence of scientific discoveries and ideas created an atmosphere where information was shared among scientists. Beginning with Pierre and Marie who never sought a patent for their discoveries, to Marie and Paul Langevin, then to Marie and her daughter Irene, then Irene and her husband Frederic Joliot, etc., these relationships clearly show the benefit of sharing ideas and how those ideas spread with a life of their own throughout the scientific community.

The book spotlights Marie’s great personal strength. As the reader follows Marie’s life, one begins to understand the tremendous challenges she overcame starting with her Polish childhood in Russian-occupied Poland. Her clandestine studies through the secret “Flying University” allowed her to acquire an education so thorough that she could ably compete as one of 23 women of 1800 students attending the Sorbonne. Conducting the physically exhausting work of proving the existence of polonium and radium, and later suffering through radium toxicity did not detract from Marie’s focus on scientific study and the raising of her two daughters…

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From Mary Akers: Radical Gratitude by Andrew Bienkowski and Mary Akers was recently translated into Polish and published as Radykalna Wdzięczność.

Radical Gratitude is both narrative and inspiring practical guidance, telling the story of one family’s survival in Stalinist Siberia. That experience develops into a guide to becoming a person who can give to others. Each chapter details the ways we can achieve radical gratitude (learning to be grateful even for the difficult experiences in life). Andrew Bienkowski has spent more than 40 years as a clinical therapist. At the age of six, he and his family were forced to leave their Polish homeland for Siberia where his grandfather deliberately starved to death so that the women and children might have enough to eat. The years that followed were harrowing and influenced his entire life. After Siberia, the family spent a year in an Iranian refugee camp where Andrew nearly died from dysentery, malaria and malnutrition. Three years in Palestine followed, a year in England, before he finally immigrated to America where he went on to earn a Masters in Clinical Psychology. Mary Akers’ work has appeared in a number of international literary journals, many related to health and healing.

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