Polish American Congress

History

Timeline

Part I: 1944-1980

• May 28-June 1, 1944: The Polish American Congress is founded at a massive rally in Buffalo, New York. Some 2,600 delegates from Polish American communities around the country take part in that significant event of World War II.
• 1945: Following President Franklin Roosevelt's return from the Yalta Conference at Yalta with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, Charles Rozmarek, President of the PAC, and the other members are among the first in America who publicly denounce the great power agreements on Poland and Eastern Europe as a betrayal of American reasons for participating in World War II.
• 1946: Rozmarek angrily denounces the handling of thousands of Polish displaced persons throughout Western and Central Europe by UN authorities and calls for immediate changes after observing the conditions in Germany and France. In Paris, Rozmarek calls for free elections in Poland to determine the country’s future.
• 1948: The PAC lobbies successfully for special congressional legislation signed by President Harry Truman that leads to the admission of 140,000 Polish displaced persons, war victims and veterans of the Polish armed forces in Western Europe to settle permanently in the US.
• 1949: The PAC backs the creation of Radio Free Europe as a voice of truth to the peoples of communist-enslaved Eastern Europe.
• 1952: A special committee of the US Congress strongly endorsed by the PAC investigates the murder of more than 14,000 Polish Army officers at the beginning of World War II by the Soviet Union.
• 1957: Following the collapse of the Stalinist regime in Poland in 1956 and its replacement by a new, seemingly-reforming communist regime headed by Wladyslaw Gomulka, the PAC backs a US government foreign aid initiative aimed at weaning Gomulka away from Moscow's authority. Immigration to the US is renewed, enabling thousands of Polish families to be reunited in this country.
• 1960: Eisenhower is the first US President to speak at a meeting of the Polish American Congress when he addresses its fifth convention in Chicago. Senator John Kennedy, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, also speaks to the assembly. In later years, Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton will all address the Polish American Congress or its leaders on issues pertaining to its concerns.
• 1964: The PAC endorses President Lyndon Johnson's policy of "Building Bridges" to "peacefully engage" the peoples of Eastern Europe and to encourage the democratization and independence of the entire region from Soviet domination.
• 1969: The first formal dialogues between the PAC and leaders of the American Jewish community begin in an effort to create new understanding and communication between two peoples who lived together in Poland for seven centuries until the Nazi occupation, devastation of Poland, and ruthless annihilation of the Jewish people.
• 1975: The PAC endorses President Gerald Ford’s signing of the international treaty on security and cooperation in Europe in Helsinki, Finland. Among other things, the Helsinki Accords legitimize a set of human rights for the people living under communist rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
• 1980: The forming of the Solidarity Trade Union Movement in Gdansk in August in a time of extreme economic and political crisis brings an immediate PAC endorsement for the union's cause under the leadership of President Mazewski and Vice President Kazimierz Lukomski, a veteran observer of the Polish scene and a member of the World War II era Polish Combatants' Association. The PAC, working in cooperation with Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Advisor, urges the United States to pressure the Soviet Union against intervening in the crisis, and calls on the Polish government to negotiate responsibly with Solidarity. The initial confrontation subsides.

  Part II: 1981- 1994

• 1981: The PAC sponsored efforts begin to raise money and materials to meet the needs of Poles, who suffer in an economy that has nearly collapsed. The PAC Charitable Foundation initiates its work for Poland by delivering medical goods in short supply to Poland. In December, after Poland's military suppresses Solidarity and proclaims martial law, the PAC backs American sanctions against the Soviet Union and Poland.
• 1982: The PAC, in co-operation with Witold Plonski of Brooklyn, wins substantial funding from the US National Endowment for the Humanities for its proposal to create a national "Consortium for Humanities and Arts Programming." Over the next five years, his Polish American Committee in the Humanities sponsors several hundred lectures, conferences, and cultural exhibitions around the US that deal with the Polish and Polish American experience. Thar is the most successful effort in history to enlighten the American public and Polish Americans about Poland's past, culture, and political experience.
• 1984: President Reagan meets with PAC leaders at the White House on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. He reaffirms his administration’s support for the policy known as the National Endowment for Democracy and endorses the creation of a Polish agricultural foundation proposed by the Catholic Church.
• 1987: The PAC wins the Reagan administration's termination of economic sanctions against Poland, a position in accord with the thinking of Pope John Paul II and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.
• 1989: In November, the PAC greets Lech Walesa in Chicago, where he receives a hero’s welcome. The PAC goes on record in lobbying for economic assistance proposals to Poland advanced by President Bush and the US Congress. The first result of these efforts is passage of the Support East European Democracy Act of 1989, which commits more than $800 million to help Poland in its transformation into a democratically governed society with a free market economy.
• 1990: PAC successfully lobbies President Bush for full US support to international confirmation of the permanence of Poland's western border with the reunited Germany, which is crucial to the future stability of Central Europe.
• 1991: The disintegration of the Soviet Union follows upon a failed last-ditch attempt in August by old guard communist leaders to reverse Gorbachev's reforms, but Gorbachev himself is soon swept aside by Russia's elected president, Boris Yeltsin. Poland, the vast Solidarity movement, and the Roman Catholic Church all played major roles in helping bring about those incredible international developments.
• 1992: The PAC plays a leading role in the activities of an historic congress of Poles from more than 50 countries, including from the former Soviet Union, that takes place in Krakow, Poland, under the auspices of the Wspolnota Polska association. The congress is among other things, a great family reunion occurring in a Poland that is at last free and independent. President Lech Walesa, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, and Cardinal Jozef Glemp are among the Polish dignitaries who address the congress. An "American Agenda" is unanimously approved by the delegates to the eleventh national PAC convention in Washington in October. Accordingly, the Congress commits itself to giving renewed and vigorous attention to building broad knowledge and respect for Poland's history and culture in this country and the advancement of worthy Polish-American nominees to every level of government responsibility in America. The task before the PAC is to put that agenda into effect.
• 1994: President Moskal, Vice President Wojcik, Treasurer Dykla and a delegation of Polish American Congress leaders play key roles in two meetings of Americans of Polish, Czech, Hungarian, and Slovak heritage that are held with the top leaders of the US government, including President Bill Clinton and Vice President Albert Gore. The meetings held in Milwaukee and Washington, DC, are themselves the direct result of a massive and unprecedented PAC campaign aimed at mobilizing Polish Americans and their friends to pressure the Administration to back NATO membership for Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. More than 100,000 letters and postcards and countless thousands of telephone calls and telegrams deluge the White House in an unprecedented display of PAC strength and resolve.