YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE POLISH

You don't have to be Polish to belong to this fine organization.

The Polish Legion of American Veterans is a non-profit Congressionally Chartered organization, whose membership shall not be discriminatory on the basis of race, color religion or national origin. We are committed to the ideals of patriotism, charity and volunteerism through allegiance to our Country, honor to our Country's standards and aiding in the rehabilitation of disabled veterans. Our goal is to dedicate time and effort to insure that no benefits be denied to those who served their country and to support legislation intended for those who earned the right to the benefits
being considered.

The PLAV works for veterans causes. For example, we visit hospitalized veterans at VA Medical Centers and Veterans Homes. Without these visits, many hospitalized veterans would have a very lonely and sad existence.

We work with other veterans to help the indigent and less fortunate veterans. We participate in ceremonies commemorating Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Polish Constitution Day, Pulaski Day and other events.

The PLAV takes time to have a little fun too by participating at social events at our various Posts throughout the nation. For example, many Posts sponsor An Evening in Warsaw and other social events.

On the education front, we provide scholarships to children and grandchildren of veterans.

It is very important to us that we remind Americans of the contributions and sacrifices made by Americans of Polish descent to safeguard the freedoms of our great nation.

Culturally, we band together and preserve the Polish customs and traditions of our forebears and to carry on with the many activities in which the PLAV is involved.

Armia Polska we Francyi

http://www.pgsa.org/index.htm
http://www.pgsa.org/haller.htm

Description of the Army

by James J. Czuchra

An estimated 20,000 Polish persons answered the call to fight for freedom and the opportunity to regain Poland's independence during World War I in the Polish Army in France (in Polish, Armia Polska we Francyi). They were recruited from among the Polish immigrants who came to America to fight with France.

The Polish Army in France was also called 'Haller's Army,' after the general who commanded it, or the 'Blue Army,' for the blue uniforms the soldiers wore.

For more information, see:
Polish Genealogical Society Newsletter, Vol. X, #1, Spring 1987, pages 1,3-4.

'World War I Polish American Military Records,' by Joseph T. Hapak, a brief history of the Polish Army in France.

Searchers, the Newsletter of the PGS of Western New York, #8, January 1993,pp.17-20. 'Buffalonians in Polish Army,' compiled by Ted Smardz, a listing of Buffalo recruits.

RESOLUTION TO REGISTER FACTS OF POLISH HISTORY

Date

Your name

address, city, state, zip

The Honorable Barbara Mikulski

United States Senate

503 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Mikulski:

I am writing to ask you to sponsor a United States Senate Resolution in order to register five facts of history about Poland’s recent past, which directly affect present day relations between America and Poland.

Over the past two years, the continuing distortion of Poland’s historical record during World War II by the mass media (especially the false claim that Poland and the Poles prosecuted the mass murder of European Jewry in partnership with Nazi Germany) has coincided with two requests from the United States Congress to Poland.

First, the U.S. House of Representatives called for today’s Poland, the Third Polish Republic, to ape what some post-Communist countries in Europe already have done -- compensate individuals whose property was seized and confiscated by the Nazis during World War II, and then nationalized by Communist governments either during the final stages of the 1939-1945 War, or after May 8/9, 1945 -- the dates that mark the cessation of World War II combat in Europe.

The unnamed post-Communist countries mentioned in this House of Representatives Resolution were allies of Nazi Germany -- Poland was not. Please see: SEC. 1428. LEGISLATION REQUIRING THE FAIR, COMPREHENSIVE, AND NON-DISCRIMINATORY RESTITU­TION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY CONFISCATED IN POLAND OF R.R. 2601 Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007. (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House).

Secondly, on 6 April 2007, your colleague Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her capacity as a member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission), wrote a letter to Prime MinisterJaroslaw Kaczynski, which is posted on Senator Clinton’s web site. In the name of Human Rights, Senator Clinton and 9 of her 17 colleagues who serve on the U.S. Helsinki Commission, all of whom are members of Congress, forcefully encouraged Prime Minister Kaczynski to expedite the enactment of a private property claims law by Poland’s National Legislature. Prime Minister Kaczynski already had agreed to do so, before he received Senator Clinton’s letter which states: “The purpose of passing a property claims law is to give the victims of past abuse some measure of justice.”

American public opinion must unambiguously understand that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (acting through their Communist proxies in Poland) perpetrated the “past abuse” which Senator Clinton mentions, and that Poland and the Poles were the victims and not pro-Nazi villains, of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

If today’s Poland enacts a law on compensation and/or restitution of World War II era despoiled and then nationalized private property, then American public opinion must understand that Poland, unlike some other post-Communist European countries, was not an ally of Nazi Germany.

This is why I encourage you to sponsor a U.S. Senate Resolution on Poland and the Poles during World War II which puts forward before American public opinion the following five points:

1. Poland was a victorious World War II United Nations ally.

2. Polish armed forces were the fourth largest contingent (after the former

Soviet Union, the former British Empire, and the United States of

America) engaged in combat in Europe against the Axis Powers.

3. Nazi Germany did not want to set-up a collaborationist Nazi-satellite

State on Nazi conquered Polish territory.

4. Poland and the Poles were not partners in Nazi Germany’s monstrous

Crime -- the mass murder of European Jewry.

5. After the Soviet Union liberated Polish territory from Nazi German

occupation, the Communists treated Poland, a victorious allied power,

worse than defeated Axis allies also liberated by the Red Army, like

Hungary or Romania. The Soviet Union then justified this treacherous

treatment of their Polish ally on the bogus grounds that Poles needed to

be restrained by Communism and Soviet military occupation or else the

Poles would continue the Judeocide which Hitler began. Many in the

West believed this Stalinist propaganda at the end of World War II -- far

too many continue to believe it today.

Whether or not we are citizens of your home state, Maryland, Polish Americans and others have come to see you as our champion in the United States Senate. We will be very grateful to you if you agree to sponsor a United States Senate Resolution along the lines described above for the purpose of improving relations between America and Poland.

We look forward to your favorable action to fulfill this request.

Sincerely yours,

____________________