Wanda B. Tomczykowska

On Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Pani Wanda finally succumbed, in Krakow, Poland, to the ravages of old age and diabetes. While vacationing in Poland in May 2002 she suffered a series of strokes, which prevented her return to San Francisco. She is survived by her grieving daughter Caria, loving grandchildren Remy, Dariana and Sebastian Szykier and great-granddaughters Hennessy and Lillian. She was predeceased by Caria’s daughter Andria and son Damien.

There will be a Holy Mass and Celebration of Life at 2:15pm on March 20th at St. Ignatius Church (Fulton and Stanyan) in San Francisco. Memorial Masses will be celebrated in Warsaw and Krakow, Poland in mid-April.

In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible donations may be sent to

The Polish Arts and Culture Foundation, 4077 Waterhouse Road, Oakland, CA 94602

Filmmaker Andrzej Wajda recalls tragic, entwined fate of father and country The Canadian Press

wajda.gifWARSAW, Poland – In the chilling final scene of “Katyn,” the new film from Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda, Soviet secret police execute one Polish army officer after another in a dank cellar, washing away the blood with buckets of water. The mechanical choreography evokes a butchery in a slaughterhouse.

For Wajda, filming the scene proved one of his greatest personal challenges. His own father suffered that fate in the 1940 massacre and he knew surviving spouses and children of the 22,000 Polish soldiers killed under Josef Stalin’s orders would see their deaths played out on the big screen.

“This was the most important thing to me – how to make the movie in a way that would not hurt them, how to make them accept this as the truth and to say, ‘yes, this is how it happened,’ ” the 81-year-old Wajda told The Associated Press.

He described “Katyn” – named after the forest where the officers were massacred – as his most personal movie ever.

The pain of remembrance was compounded by the fact his mother lived out her life holding out hope that her husband, Lt. Jakub Wajda, may have survived, since his name never appeared on any official list of Polish soldiers killed in the Second World War.

“She nourished the illusion that he was alive somewhere and would come back from the war,” Wajda said. “Until her death, she hoped he would be found.”

He said his goal was to mix family history with that of his nation.

“I wanted to tell a story about something in my area of experience, about my father and my mother. It all happened in a time that I still remember,” he said, speaking at the film school he founded, where he had just finish giving a lesson to a group of young filmmakers.

The film was released in Poland this fall and has so far sold three million tickets in a country of 38 million people. It is schedule to make its international premiere at the Berlin film festival in February.

Wajda is hopeful the movie will get widespread international distribution, but he acknowledged that the complicated historical context may prove esoteric to some foreign viewers.

The film opens in 1939 after Germany has invaded Poland from the West and the Red Army has moved in from the East, carving up the country based on the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Hitler and Stalin.

Wajda depicts Poland’s agony in the opening scene where, on a bridge, Poles fleeing the Nazis collide with their countrymen fleeing the Soviets.

It is symbolic, but based on actual events. So is another scene showing a Soviet soldier who removes a Polish flag from a building, rips it apart and uses the white portion to wrap around his foot as a sock. The red half is put back on the building.

The message is clear: Poland is obliterated and the communists are in charge.

The flourish is typical Wajda.

“Those who know my films know that I make such symbolic scenes, that this is my specialty,” said Wajda, who received an honorary Academy Award in 2000 for a career that included such acclaimed works as “Ashes and Diamonds,” “Kanal,” “Man of Marble,” and “Man of Iron.”

“Katyn” depicts not only the crimes carried out in the Katyn forest and elsewhere and the devastation of the families, but also what Wajda called the “Katyn lie.”

He traced the fate of the wives and a sister of fictional officers who struggle to learn the truth about their loved ones from the Soviets who controlled Poland during and after the war. The crimes are blamed on the Nazis. Another thread of the film details a young woman who erects a gravestone for her brother killed at Katyn; it is quickly destroyed by the Communist government.

Wajda, who was 13 when the war began, did not feature his father among the characters.

“It would have been hard for me to tell his story since I don’t know what really happened,” Wajda said of his father, whom he described as a dutiful officer.

Despite his father’s absences, Wajda vividly recalled “wonderful moments when he taught me how to ride a horse. At that time, the whole Polish army was still on horseback. It was like a 19th century army being gradually modernized to a modern one on wheels.”

His father also taught him to draw, which inspired him to study fine arts before attending the Lodz film school.

To him, Katyn is one of the most tragic war crimes in history and a topic he could not have tackled before communism collapsed in 1989 because Moscow refused to acknowledge it.

“I never thought I would live to the moment when Poland would be a free country,” Wajda said. “I thought I would die in that system. It was so surprising and so extraordinary that I lived to see freedom.”

BMW Sauber finally took their long overdue maiden victory in Montreal on Sunday, as Robert Kubica led Nick Heidfeld home in a fabulous one-two on a day when early leader Lewis Hamilton inadvertently crashed his McLaren into Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in a pit-lane collision during the first round of refuelling stops.

As a result of his first win, Kubica now leads the world championship fight with 42 points to Hamilton and Massa’s 38 and Raikkonen’s 35.

At the start Hamilton sprinted away from pole position, leaving Kubica to fend off Raikkonen. But the safety car neutralised that when it was deployed to recover Adrian Sutil’s Force India from a dangerous position on the 17th lap.

All of the leaders pitted on Lap 19, and as Hamilton rejoined, having dropped behind Raikkonen and Kubica after a longer stop, he ran into the back of the Finn, whom he suddenly realised was stopped by the red pit-lane exit light. Both the Ferrari and the McLaren were too damaged to continue. Nico Rosberg also damaged his Williams by running into the rear of Hamilton in the incident. An additional pit visit for a new nose thus dropped the German out of contention after running fourth early on.

Heidfeld now led as, at stages before their own pit calls, did fellow one-stoppers Honda’s Rubens Barrichello, Red Bull’s David Coulthard and Toyota’s Timo Glock. Heidfeld was able to pit and rejoin ahead of Kubica, but on his two-stop strategy the Pole was clearly faster and Heidfeld had no choice but to let him go on Lap 31.

In the second part of the race the greatest threat to the Swiss-German cars came from Fernando Alonso, who was pushing his Renault hard. On Lap 44 he sneaked by Heidfeld at the hairpin, only to slide wide. A lap later he got on the power a fraction too soon exiting the second corner, and suddenly the R28 was rotating out of the race.

Kubica and Heidfeld were thus able to cruise home to a great success, as Coulthard made the most of his opportunities with a solid third place for Red Bull. A strong drive saw Glock hang on for fourth place just ahead of Massa, who had to stop twice early on after a refuelling problem, and recovered brilliantly with a drive that at one time saw him jump both Barrichello and McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen at the hairpin.

Toyota’s Jarno Trulli got ahead of Barrichello when the Brazilian made a mistake late in the race, and Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel hung on to take the final point after a gutsy performance, having started from the pit lane. Kovalainen was an unhappy ninth ahead of the recovering Rosberg, Honda’s Jenson Button (who also started from the pit lane after making some suspension set-up changes), Red Bull’s Mark Webber who ran strongly until his pit stop dropped him back and he later spun, and Sebastien Bourdais who also spun his Toro Rosso.

Giancarlo Fisichella crashed his Force India, Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima was a points contender before damaging his front wing on Button and then tobogganing into the pit wall when it folded back beneath his wheel; and Renault’s Nelson Piquet spun and retired with an unspecified mechanical problem.

BMW Sauber’s great day jumped them back to second in the constructors’ stakes with 70 points to Ferrari’s 73 and McLaren’s 53.

“We can never forget what happened to these people who were just murdered by communists,” said Richard Poremski, chairman of the National Katyn Memorial Foundation.

“Never again, nowhere in this world should this atrocity be committed again.”

Teary-eyed war veterans bowed their heads in prayer standing side by side with young Polish-American children dressed in the vibrant red of traditional Polish dance attire.

Teenage boys from a Polish-American Boy Scout troop in Brooklyn, N.Y., stood in silence, staring up at the 45-foot bronze sculpture brought to Baltimore City from Poland in November 2000 and carried through Fells Point in the middle of the night.

“This is a wonderful time for people to gather to remember their fight for freedom,” said Maryann Chorabik, of Baltimore City, who shares her Polish heritage with her 5-year-old son, Michael, who was among the Krakowiaki dancers, a local Polish-American group.

The eighth annual ceremony held at the National Katyn Memorial on President Street honors some 20,000 Poles who were secretly executed when the Red Army entered Poland in 1939. It wasn’t until half a century after a mass grave of Poland’s political and intellectual elite was found buried in Russia’s Katyn forest that the Soviets took responsibility for the massacre.

“In school they taught us the Germans did this, but that was not true,” said Lidia Myszkowski, 61, who traveled from Pennsylvania to be part of the ceremony.

“Now we know the Russian soldiers did this, and we are happy for all the world to know the true story,” she said.

Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon announced at the ceremony her commitment to teaching the city’s schoolchildren about the Katyn massacre and the significance of the memorial.

“I’m honored to be a part of what I believe is an opportunity to enhance our diversity but bring us together,” Dixon said.

“I never can imagine what was on one’s mind and one’s heart to destroy so many lives.”

Local leaders, including U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes and City Councilman Jim Kraft, joined Dixon in declaring that such an atrocity should never be forgotten nor repeated.

The ceremony was concluded as representatives from the Poland Legion of American Veterans, Catholic War Veterans and Polish Heritage Association laid wreaths on the memorial.

According to Professor Cichy, the presence of nodules on the surface
of the composer’s heart, cited in the autopsy report, could be a
symptom of the disease, which is a genetic disorder affecting
primarily the lungs. Also, the medical history of members of Chopin’s
immediate family supports this theory: two of his three sisters died
of lung diseases, and the youngest one, who was of very fragile
health, died at the age of 15. Chopin died at 39.

Cystic fibrosis and its genetic ramifications were not fully
described until 1932, 83 years after his death. Professor Cichy’s
team hopes to be able to carry out further genetic research on the
basis of the material taken from the remains of Emilia Chopin, who
was buried at Warsaw’s Powazki Cemetery.

The ceremonies marking the establishment of the sister cities will take place in Krakow on July 3rd and later in the fall in San Francisco. Krakow Mayor Majchrowski and a representative of Mayor Newsom will sign the agreement. I will be attending along with my fellow Honorary Consul, Tad Taube, who worked with me in obtaining the agreement between both cities. If you are interested in attending either ceremony, please contact me for details.

We are hoping to organize many events in the near future related to this special Sister City relationship, including:

·         cultural and artistic events

·         academic exchanges

·         commercial activities

·         athletic events and

·         delegations of political, religious, and other dignitaries from both Cities

We welcome your role in helping to organize and carry out these events as part of the Sister City program.

Please let me know if you would like to get involved in planning future activities by emailing me or my consular assistant, Magdalena Zimka at mzimka@youradvocate.net.

Also, please don’t forget about the Polish Festival taking place next Sunday, May 3rd at Golden Gate Park. Information at: www.poloniasf.org.

Best wishes,

Christopher A. Kerosky
Honorary Consul
Republic of Poland
Humboldt Bank Building
785 Market St
15th and 16th Floors
San Francisco, California 94103
ckerosky@polishconsul.com
www.polishconsul.com

Professor Stelmachowski was a long-time friend and supporter of the work initiated by PACF Founder, Mme. Wanda Tomczykowska. Thanks to his network of associates and their resource materials,  many exhibits which the PACF showed, were easier to create.

The organization he founded in Poland in 1990, Stowarzyszenie Wspolnota Polska, enabled hundreds of other Polonia organizations around the world to communicate and interact to better showcase poland’s heritage, and future possibilities.

Professor Stelmachowski’s ready smile and warm handshake were all that anyone needed to know that this gesture was as good as his word and mutual cooperation was guaranteed. Of late, Wspolnota Polska has been relentlessly working to save Poland’s roots in the Ukraine, Belarus and the other northern Russian regions which were once Polish. They accept monetary donations as well as books for students living in those regions, to replace those destroyed by the Russian civic groups attempting to eradicate any Polish tracks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrzej_Stelmachowski

The Polish Arts and Culture Foundation

And

The Polish Cultural Club of Rossmoor

Cordially invites you to share a Traditional Polish Christmas Meal

On Saturday, December 19^th , 2009 from  11:00am to 3:00pm

In the beautifully decorated and elegant  Dollar Club House

in Rossmoor, Walnut Creek, CA.

Catering by Krystyna Tulik and Feliks Janiszewski,

formerly of  Old Krakow Restaurant in San Francisco.

California Wines and Polish Vodka provided by PACF.

This traditional eleven-course meal is centuries old.

Fresh hay under the tablecloths, Oplatek to start, and Christmas Carols will be sung between each course, accompanied by Dan Capodanno on accordion.

Please bring along a  gift  for your someone special

to be delivered by St. Nicholas at the end of the event.

Seating is limited so please reserve by December 6^th.

Reservations: 510-599-2244 or 925-295-0774

Cost: $50.00 per person.

Reservation confirmation must be presented for entry to Rossmoor.

Gift Shop with Polish Treasures will be open/

www.polishculturesf.org for more items.