The two men grew up on separate continents, speaking their own languages. One was not yet 20; the other was bearing down on 100.

Yet within half an hour of meeting each other this week for the first time, Henry Kabiyona and Sol Rosenkranz knew each other’s stories before the words reached their lips.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Rwanda • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

n official says the oldest known former prisoner of the Auschwitz death camp has died in Poland at the age of 108.

Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum, says Antoni Dobrowolski died Sunday in the northwestern town of Debno.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • Poland

They are in their 80s now, the last living links to Janusz Korczak, the visionary champion of children’s rights who refused to part with his young charges even as they were herded to the gas chambers.

When they speak of him, the old men are young again: transported to their days in his orphanage, a place they remember as a magical republic for children as the Nazi threat grew closer.

“It was a utopia,” said Shlomo Nadel, 85, one of the surviving orphans who managed to flee Poland before the Jewish orphanage was forced into the ghetto.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Health & Medicine • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • Middle East • Israel • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

Herewith the blurb about the show:

Dr. Janucz Korczak (1878-1942) was a Polish-Jewish pediatrician who had revolutionary ideas about humanism for children, and was one of the first proponents of children's rights. He established the first progressive orphanages in Poland, and wrote numerous books on child psychology, including How to Love a Child and the Child's Right to Respect. Pediatrician Dr. Susan Weisberg describes how Dr. Korczak has inspired her life's work, and tells the story of Dr. Korczak's tragic but noble Holocaust death. Dr. Michael Greenberg hosts.

You can play it or get it via podcast (last about 14 and 1/2 minutes and requires [free] registration). This was the highlight of the week for me--KSH [Hat tip: Elizabeth Harmon]. If you are unable or unwilling to access this recent ReachMD show, do take the time to explore this NPR piece from 2007 here (full transcript there).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Health & Medicine • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

When pregnant women in Poland decide to have an abortion, they take a common but highly secretive step. "I found some phone numbers in the newspaper; I called around," explains a young blonde woman named Jola. The doctors are listed anonymously in the classifieds section offering to "induce menstruation" or provide "full service." Everybody understands.

"You cannot use the words 'abortion' or 'termination'; rather, 'I am pregnant – can you help me?' Something like that," she says, speaking of her illegal abortion in the 2009 Polish documentary, "Underground Women's State." None of the seven women interviewed give their full name and all are well disguised.

Although the topic has long been taboo in Poland, leaders on both sides of the abortion debate now acknowledge the existence of this hidden, private practice. And this month, the Polish parliament is expected to vote on whether to liberalize its abortion policy, one of the strictest in Europe.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • History • Law & Legal Issues • Life Ethics • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The threat to freedom of information in Poland, with attempts to limit the broadcasts of the country’s only Catholic television station, is a little known issue in the rest of the world.

On Dec. 19, 2011, the National Council of Polish Radio and Television (KRRiT in Polish) did not grant the country’s only Catholic television station space on the new digital platform, which from 2013 will ensure Poles free access to a series of TV broadcasts.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Media • Movies & Television • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

A chill wind snapped around the base of the massive concrete statue of Christ, arms outstretched, that rises more than 118 feet into the sky above this small town in western Poland.

"It gives you a very religious feeling, especially because it's Christmastime," said Waldemar Kierzkowski, who this week visited the towering year-old image that has become a lightning rod in Poland's culture war.

Mr. Kierzkowski, a 55-year-old car dealer, and his wife, Alina, drove from their home in Goleniow, more than 150 miles away, to shoot a few photos with the gray monument—whose builders say it is the tallest Jesus in the world—soaring behind them.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Art • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland

Germany is the only country in Europe that can act to save the eurozone and the wider European Union from “a crisis of apocalyptic proportions”, the Polish foreign minister warned on Monday in a passionate call for more drastic action to prevent the collapse of the European monetary union.

The extraordinary appeal by Radoslaw Sikorski, delivered in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate in the German capital, came as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development called on European leaders to provide “credible and large enough firepower” to halt the sell-off in the eurozone sovereign debt market, or risk a severe recession.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Currency Markets • Euro • European Central Bank • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • * International News & Commentary • Europe • --European Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2010 • Germany • Poland

Dozens of rabbis from across Europe have gathered in Warsaw for the largest meeting of Jewish religious leaders in Poland since the community was virtually wiped out during World War II.

This year's Conference of European Rabbis will focus on a range of issues affecting European and global Jewry, including attempts in Europe to ban the Jewish method of religious slaughter of animals.

But, the rabbis will also discuss the problem of validating the Jewish identity of people who have not practiced Judaism in two or three generations. This has become an issue in countries like Poland, where many people with Jewish ancestry were so traumatized by the Holocaust and postwar anti-Semitism that they lived secular or Christian lives for decades and are only now again embracing a Jewish life.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

Wow--watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland

Here, the students witnessed the establishment of a German-Polish-Russian forum designed to encourage a rapprochement among three countries with fundamentally different historical narratives of World War II.

Any such process would ultimately mean Russia confronting its past, particularly Stalinist crimes and the gulags, and reassessing its role as victim and victor during and after World War II. It would also mean Russia embracing the European idea of dealing with memory and the past, now so much a part of the European identity.

“Being European is about being aware of what we did,” said Ivan Krastev, historian and chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • Poland • Russia

As the late Pope John Paul II is beatified in the Vatican, many in his home country, Poland, are jubilant. But Poland’s attachment to the late Pope stems from more than just national pride, since many credit him with helping to overthrow the communist state.

In the town of Wadowice in southern Poland, John Paul II is everywhere. His face flutters from flags lining the streets, and he beams down on passers by from statues and photographs. Wadowice is the late Pope’s home town. He was born Karol Wojtyla in 1920, in a three-room flat that now houses a museum filled with his personal affairs - his cradle, his skis and a doily made by his mother.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

"John Paul II is blessed because of his faith -- a strong, generous and apostolic faith," Pope Benedict XVI said May 1 just minutes after formally beatifying his predecessor.

Italian police said that for the Mass more than 1 million people were gathered in and around the Vatican and in front of large video screens in several parts of the city.

Many in the crowd had personal stories about seeing Pope John Paul or even meeting him, and Pope Benedict ended his homily at the Mass sharing his own personal story.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

During public ceremonies, Pope John Paul put people at their ease, often with a sense of humor. When he held hands and danced onstage with young people in Australia in 1986, one of the girls began to cry. The smiling pope hugged her and said simply, "Don't worry."

Carl Anderson, the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, was impressed with the way Pope John Paul patiently greeted the sick and disabled at his public events, chatting with them one by one and blessing them. He was not going through the motions; he was interested in them.

"These were small actions that were not necessary and not expected. It was something he was doing that was different, personal and made that person feel very special with the encounter," Anderson said.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Strange as it may seem, I've been vaguely worried about today's beatification of a man with whom I was in close conversation for over a decade and to the writing of whose biography I dedicated 15 years of my own life.
My worries don't have to do with allegations of a "rushed" beatification process - the process has been a thorough one, and the official judgment is the same as the judgment of the people of the Church.
I'm also unconcerned about the fretting of ultra-traditionalists for whom John Paul II was a failure because he didn't restore the French monarchy, impose the Tridentine Mass on the entire Church, and issue thundering anathemas against theologians and wayward politicians....

No, my worries have to do with our losing touch with the qualities of the man himself....

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

On a sunny afternoon this week, St. Peter’s Square was abuzz with life. Crowds lined up at the metal detectors. Tourists snapped photos. A workman was spraying down the travertine steps to the basilica. And inside, red cloth screens cordoned off a side chapel that will soon draw as many visitors as Michelangelo’s Pietà nearby.

Starting Sunday, that chapel is where the entombed remains of Pope John Paul II will be on view for public veneration — after Pope Benedict XVI presides over the biggest spectacle since his own installation in 2005: a beatification Mass that will move his adored predecessor a step closer to sainthood.

The beatification is widely seen as a way not just to honor John Paul but to energize the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, like John Paul’s 26-year papacy itself, it has become intensely polarizing....

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Along with nationwide prayers on Sunday the Church has also organised a two-day retreat for drivers where they can reflect upon their attitude when they get behind a wheel.

Aggressive and bad driving make a significant contribution to the high death-rate on Polish roads, one of the worst in the developed world. A survey by the by the OECD-affiliated International Transport Forum for 2009 found there were 12 deaths on Polish roads for every 100,000 inhabitants while the UK clocked up just 3.9 despite having more cars and a greater road network than Poland.

"Many of us behave like pagans when we're driving," said Father Marian Midura, the organiser of the prayer day, which has the support of the national police. "Even though we hang rosaries, carry images of saints and have the early Christian sign of the fish on our cars we do not respect other drivers." Priests will also beseech people to avoid drink driving, another contributing factor to the death rate.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Travel • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

When Pope Benedict XVI declares Pope John Paul II "blessed" on May 1, bestowing on his predecessor the Catholic Church's highest honor short of sainthood, millions will watch from St. Peter's Square, on television and on the Internet. John Paul's beatification, which was officially announced last week, will be an occasion for recalling his eventful reign, and it will inevitably inspire comparisons with the man who now sits in his place. In many eyes, those comparisons will not prove favorable to Benedict.

The current pope is low-key, as Americans discovered during his 2008 visit. For all his charm, he lacks the gregariousness, physical presence and gift for the dramatic gesture with which the former actor John Paul could win over crowds.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

"Let every listener choose that which interests him. I have nothing against one person liking Mozart or Shostakovich or Leonard Bernstein, but doesn't like Górecki. That's fine with me. I, too, like certain things."

--Henryk Górecki (1933-2010) as quoted by Richard Kauffman in the Christian Century, December 14, 2010, page 13

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Music • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland

Poland is still an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation, still conservative and still religious, especially when compared with its European neighbors. But supporters and critics of the Roman Catholic Church all acknowledge that the society is changing. They agree that church representatives in Poland have lost authority and credibility, and that much of the population is moving toward a more secular view of life, one with a greater separation between church and state, and a rejection of church mandates on individual morality.

“We are considered the European museum of Catholicism, but let me tell you we are no longer,” said Szymon Holownia, program director for Religia TV, a relatively new station that aims to convince Poles that faith can and should be relevant in modern life with programs like a cooking show led by a nun. “The relationship between faith and state is changing; it is changing dramatically in Poland,” Mr. Holownia said. “It is really huge.”

“Twenty years of freedom and religion is evaporating,” he said. “This is the crisis of Christianity in Poland.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Other Faiths • Secularism

The current economic crisis and the ignorance of some Western scholars are fueling prejudices against Islam, participants said at a conference in Poland Friday.

The daylong conference in the western Polish city of Wroclaw considered the media portrayal of Islam, attitudes toward Muslim immigrants in France and the perception of Muslims in the former Soviet Union.

Imam Ali Abi Issa, of Wroclaw's mosque, said some Western scholars are fueling Islamophobia by studying Islamic texts without looking at historical or cultural contexts.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

Read it all will not cut it on this one, you need to listen to it all.

The one section that you absolutely must not miss is this one:

One person who was very moved by Gorecki's third symphony was a 14-year old girl from Sweden — a burn victim who wrote a letter to the composer, telling him that his music was the only thing that kept her alive. Gorecki reads from the letter in his interview.

There is an audio link where Gorecki reads the letter through a translator--it made me cry--KSH. (Hat tip: Elizabeth)

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • History • Music • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland

It's a plain wooden cross almost austere in its simplicity.

But it is stirring passions in heavily Roman Catholic Poland that expose bitter divisions which make it seem like two separate nations sharing the same land and language.

The pale wood cross about four meters (13 feet) high was erected in front of the presidential palace by Boy and Girl Scouts days after the April plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others.

It quickly became a spot for mourners to light candles, place flowers and pray.

Now, with a new president installed and the country returning to normal, the question of whether the cross should stay or go has set off wider disputes that underscore the deep divisions between traditional and modern Poles, conservatives and liberals, and even rich and poor.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland

Almost every classical pianist loves Chopin. But Polish pianists have a special bond with the music of their compatriot, whether they're tossing off a jaunty Mazurka or navigating a serious Sonata. To mark the bicentennial of the composer's birth, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz discuss the appeal of Chopin's music and spin a few great Chopin recordings by Polish pianists from 1917 up to the present.

Caught this on the morning run--simply fantastic. Listen to it all ( a little under 12 minutes).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Music • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland

Mr. [Michal] Bilewicz, the psychologist, agreed. He described two interesting studies he conducted not long ago. In one, he said, different groups of Israeli and Polish teenagers, brought together, were told either to chat only about their lives today or to discuss only the war and Shoah. The first group forged easy bonds. The second talked at cross purposes. “Both sides need to learn to empathize more,” Mr. Bilewicz concluded.

The other study surveyed residents of what used to be the Warsaw Ghetto, where virtually no remnants of the Jewish past remain, aside from street names and the memorial. To the surprise even of the researchers, many residents said the Jewish history of their district was crucial to their own sense of pride and home. The study found that the monuments, museums and other cultural reminders of the past were essential to sustaining the neighborhood’s collective memory.

“History is being rewritten here every day,” as Mr. Bilewicz put it. “How come you in America believe that you can change, but Poles always remain the same?”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism