December 1980: The Soviet invasion of Poland

At the beginning of the winter of 1980, Warsaw Pact countries mobilized several divisions to take part in Soyuz-80 maneuvers scheduled on 8 December 1980. The White House was afraid that under the pretext of exercising, the Soviet army would enter Poland and break up Solidarity. Was Moscow really planning to invade Poland? by Tomasz…


Wanda Rutkiewicz: the first lady of world Himalayan mountaineering

Wanda Rutkiewicz was one of the best Himalayan climbers in history and a pioneer of all-female climbing in the world’s highest mountains. She climbed eight eight-thousanders. She always looked at Himalayan mountaineering through the prism of sport. She pushed her own limits, wanted to be the best every time, and never gave up on the…


Karolina Lanckorońska: aristocrat, scholar, and patron

Countess Karolina Lanckorońska is best known for her memoirs titled Those Who Trespass Against Us: One Woman’s War Against the Nazis (‘War Memoirs’ in Polish). In the memory of Polish historians, whom she often generously supported, she went down in history as a scholar and patron of science. She was the first woman in Poland…



Władysław Szpilman: How did the pianist survive the war?

Władysław Szpilman is currently the most well-known of the Warsaw Robinsons. How did he survive in German-occupied Warsaw? by Michał Studniarek   In 1939, Władysław Szpilman resided in the center of Warsaw on Śliska Street with his parents, Samuel and Edwarda, his brother Henryk and his two sisters – Regina and Halina. Władysław was working…


‘Threads were going from person to person, wispy threads of help...’: The Council for Aid to Jews ‘Żegota’

In the summer and autumn of 1942, in the General Government (GG), the Germans carried out mass deportations of the Jewish population to extermination camps. These actions, code-named Operation ‘Reinhardt’, aimed to exterminate all the Jews from that area. The few who managed to escape deportation sought refuge on the so-called Aryan side. In these…


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