By Stefan Wisniowski (Foundation President) | and Marcin Kawala (Executive Committee Member)
Dear Kresy-Siberia supporter,
Thank you for your generous past donations to support our mission, dedicated to researching, remembering and recognizing Poland's citizens fighting for survival and freedom in eastern Poland’s “Kresy” and in forced exile during World War II.
As you complete your charity donations for 2018 (tax-deductible in UK and USA), please mark November 27 ("Giving Tuesday") on your calendars. On that day only (from 00:01 to 23:59 hours, US Eastern Time), all donations made for Kresy-Siberia through the GlobalGiving website www.globalgiving.org/projects/kresy-siberia-keep-their-memory-alive will be added to by GlobalGiving itself. So, no matter how small your 2018 donation (or annual subscription), please be sure to make it online on "Giving Tuesday", November 27 to magnify its impact.
Most of our funds are being earmarked for an IT redevelopment of our Virtual Museum website www.Kresy-Siberia.org, now 10 years old and that is many generations behind for the internet!
Meanwhile, our friendly and supportive online research and discussion group continues to grow and now has over 1,800 members from Poland and all around the world. Please invite your friends and family to join at www.facebook.com/groups/KresySiberiaGroup/.
Our big news was our 5th Annual "Generations Remember" 2018 Kresy-Siberia conference and reunion, held in Warsaw on 15-17 September. You can read the report below, see the event program and watch all the proceedings at www.kresy-siberia.org/museum/conference/
As you consider your continuing support, you can download all of our donor reports, our Foundation Statutes (constitution), our Code of Conduct, and Annual Reports to Poland's Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, at www.kresy-siberia.org/museum/about-us/documents/.
* * *
"Generations Remember" 2018 Conference and Reunion
(Full report by Grace Nagiecka with photos by Gregory Spring, following summary prepared by Marcin Kawala)
On 15-17 September 2018 we held our 5th “Generations Remember” conference in Warsaw. This year we commemorated the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining independence and the 75th anniversary of the peak of the Volhynia Massacres. As in previous years our venue was the History Meeting House (Dom Spotkan z Historia) in Warsaw. This year we had a record number of participants attending the conference. On top of that many more watched the lectures via Internet. The participants arrived from literally every corner of the world – we had people from Canada, USA, UK, Sweden, Russia, Iran, Australia, New Zealand and of course Poland.
The conference started with a formal presentation of a 90th anniversary commemorative medal from Poland's Association of Siberian Deportees (Zwiazek Sybiraków)to the Kresy-Siberia Foundation. The presentation was made by Mieczysaw Pogodzinski, National Vice-President of the Association, and accepted by Foundation President Stefan Wisniowski.
As the Kresy-Siberia Foundation President said at the end of the second day, this was been the best conference to date in terms of variety and topics of speakers. The participants witnessed premieres of two films: “Memory is our Homeland” by Jonathan Koodziej Durand from Canada and “Madame” by Narges Kharghani from Iran. We heard about family stories about Sybirak Survivors (Iwona Januszajtis, Paulina Kaszuba, Tania Sawicka-Mead), Kresy culture (Tomasz Kuba Kozowski), artists in General Anders’ Army (Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz), Polish refugee camps in Africa and America (Marcin Kawala), Biaystok's new Sybir Memorial Museum (Wojciech Sleszynski), and a very informative lecture on how Survivors dealt with their trauma and relocation (Amanda Chaupa). After the lectures, our speakers were available for discussions with conference participants.
A very important moment came on the second day of the conference, when a formal agreement was signed to enact and promote cooperation between the Kresy-Siberia Foundation and the Sybir Memorial Museum sybir.bialystok.pl/en/.
The conference ended with the Kresy Siberia Foundation President introducing five new members appointed to join Anna Pacewicz and Tim Bucknall on the Foundation Executive Committee: Barbara Gdowski and Robert Czernkowski from Australia, Iwona Krason from England, Stanisaw Urban from Poland and Marcin Kawala from Sweden.
The third day marked the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland and is called Sybirak Day. The day's commemorations began at the Katyn Museum with a Holy Mass held outdoors on the grounds of the Warsaw Citadel. At 4pm the Kresy Siberia members proceeded with the Generations Remember March from the Citadel to the Monument to the Perished and Murdered in the East (a walk of about 1/2 km through the streets of Warsaw). The Kresy Siberia banner was carried prominently and the group had a police escort.
The conference was a huge success thanks to theConference Committee coordinators (Maciej Czarkowski, Marcin Kawala, Iwona Krason, Marek Krason and Stefan Wisniowski), to the History Meeting House staff, to simultaneous translators Anastazia Pindor and Renata Knechciak, conference reporter Grace Nagiecka and official photographer Gregory Spring.
We are also very pleased that an all-volunteer committee has come together to organize our 6th Kresy-Siberia “Generations Remember” Conference in Warsaw on 14-15 September 2019 so please start making your plans now. Also, if you would like to make or to suggest a presentation for the next year’s conference, please write to Conference@Kresy-Siberia.org.
* * *
Thank you again for all of your priceless support of the Kresy-Siberia mission, whether through your financial donations, volunteer time and talent, or contribution of photos, Survivor interviews or other historical materials.
Please do remember to donate online on "Giving Tuesday", November 27 to get a bonus top-up.
Preserving and promoting our history all depends on you!
With gratitude and warm regards,
Stefan Wisniowski, Foundation President
Marcin Kawala, Executive Committee Member
and the whole Kresy-Siberia Foundation team
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
