Józef Unrug: honour above all
(7 October 1884 – 28 February 1973)

Born into a family of German origin, he spoke with a strong accent until the end of his life. However, when he was taken prisoner during the Second World War, he was persuaded to go over to the side of the Third Reich. Rear Admiral Józef Unrug replied briefly: ‘On 1 September 1939, I forgot...

General Władysław Sikorski's appeal to the Polish People (6 October 1939)

The appeal from 6 October 1939 was made in one of the most dramatic moments in the Polish history. The Polish Army had been completely defeated over the previous month. Poland was being attacked from the west, north and south by the Third Reich and from the east by the Soviet Army, which made it...

St. Maria Faustina Kowalska and the cult of Divine Mercy
On Divine Mercy Sunday

The cult of Divine Mercy, which has its roots in Poland, is one of the most important and widespread forms of Catholic devotion both at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. The character of the cult is undoubtedly universal – whether in Latin America or Japan, Australia or Poland...

Maximilian Maria Kolbe – organizer, monk, and saint
80th anniversary of the deportation of Father Maksymilian Maria Kolbe to KL Auschwitz

Maximilian Maria Kolbe is a symbol of faith and sacrifice for many Poles. His decision to sacrifice his life for a fellow prisoner is a heroic example of humanity during inhuman times. by Piotr Abryszeński   As an adult, Maximilian Kolbe recalled that when he was a boy he had experienced a vision of the...

Escape of ORP ‘Orzeł’
The Mystery of the Polish Submarine

She was the most modern submarine in the Baltic. How did it happen that ORP ‘Orzeł’ (Polish for: Eagle) had to escape from the Tallinn harbour and, above all, how did her secret journey to the UK pan out? by Daniel Czerwiński   ‘Orzeł’ enters service ORP ‘Orzeł’ made its first appearance in Gdynia on...

Stanisław Lem: Visionary of Science and the Human Experience
(12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006)

Stanisław Lem remains one of the most important and most widely read science fiction writers in the world. His books have been translated into dozens of languages, with a combined circulation of over 30 million copies. Although fascinated with technology, he warned against its detrimental impact on human existence. by Jan Hlebowicz   Born on...

An experience of real slaughter and madness
An interview with professor Grzegorz Berendt, deputy director of the Museum of the Second World War

An interview with professor Grzegorz Berendt, deputy director of the Museum of the Second World War, a state cultural institution established in 2008 and a museum in Gdańsk, devoted to the Second World War, about present-day perceptions of and research about that war, on the 80th anniversary of its outbreak. Polishhistory: The Second World War...

Rudolf Weigl. The man who defeated typhus
The phenomenon of Rudolf Weigl’s invention

He was not born Polish, but became a Pole by choice. Rudolf Weigl was a pioneer in using lice to breed typhus germs and the creator of the first effective vaccine against this terrible disease. by Piotr Abryszeński   Rudolf Weigl was born in Moravia to an Austrian family on 2 September 1883. After his...

The Last Game
Poland v Hungary football match (27 August 1939)

The first official football match of the Polish national team was played on December 18, 1921, in Budapest. Hungary won 1-0. Interestingly, the last match played by Poland before the outbreak of World War II was also against Hungary. On August 27, 1939, at the Warsaw stadium of the Polish Army named after Marshal Józef...

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was an alliance
an interveiw with prof. Mariusz Wołos

The essence of this agreement was not an open and public non-aggression pact, and thus similar to many other documents of this type signed in the interwar period, but a secret protocol on the division of Central and Eastern Europe says Prof. Mariusz Wołos, a historian from the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Pedagogical...

Stanisław Żółkiewski: Between Military Service and Private Interests
Stanisław Żółkiewski’s career and heroic death

On the night from 6 to 7 October 1620, a seventy-three-year-old Crown Grand Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski perished on the battlefield in the last act of a drama that had begun a month prior. At the beginning of September, amid growing political tensions between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, the Hetman entered Moldavia –...

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Polishhistory is an online project of the Polish History Museum in Warsaw. It is primarily addressed to all those interested in Polish and Central European history. Our aim is to build a community consisting of those professionally involved in research and of those interested in the outcomes of research, essentially, all lovers of history. The...