By Anna Pacewicz (Executive Committee Chair) | & Stefan Wisniowski, (Foundation President)
Dear Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum donors,
Thank you again for your generous support of Kresy-Siberia. Your donations through our Global Giving campaign were given a terrific boost on "Giving Tuesday", November 29th, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation adding over US$2,000 in matching funds, bringing our total up over US$12,000 for 2016. This ensures that we can continue running and strengthening the Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum www.Kresy-Siberia.org to research, remember and recognize Poland's citizens fighting for survival and freedom in eastern Poland’s “Kresy” and in forced exile during World War II.
Virtual Museum recovery and strenghthening
Our last report explained that some months ago, the Virtual Museum was brought off-line by a malicious software attack. Your donations have not only enabled us to bring the Virtual Museum back online and repair many of the glitches, but will allow a full up-grade to the newest version of our WordPress website software. This upcoming work by our Poland-based I.T. team will improve our security against future hacking and upgrade its design and user-friendliness. This is a critical investment for the preservation and ongoing health of the Virtual Museum and will continue through 2017. Please visit the Virtual Museum now that it is back online, and add your family members and their details to the Wall of Tribute and scans of their photographs and documents to the Hall of Memories.
Major new photograph contribution
The I.T. rescue work also enabled us to recently add the wonderful Proskurnicki Family Collection to the Virtual Museum, featuring 358 previously unpublished wartime photographs of Siberia, Koja and India, contributed from his private collection by Kresy-Siberia member Jerry Proskurnicki, from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Thank you so much also to Kresy-Siberia member volunteer Helena Kordzinski, from Saint Helens, Merseyside, England, for helping with this mammoth task! You can see some of these photographs in this report, and you can view the full collection at www.kresy-siberia.org/hom/element/proskurnicki-family.
New Survivor Testimoniess
Work continues on Kresy-Siberia's Survivor Testimony program. another important part of the Virtual Museum's mission. Film interviews are currently being organised with Sybirak residents of the Penhros Polish Home in Wales, United Kingdom. The home, near Pwllheli, Gwyneed, was actually founded in 1949 on a former RAF base to help exiled Polish war veterans. As well conducting new Survivor interviews, we are safeguarding and completing the processing of interviews we recorded over the past few years. Up to 100 interviews are currently being processed, archived and uploaded to bring these stories to the Virtual Museum. You can view the most recently added excerpts from Survivors Aniela (Kosakowska) Janicka [pictured], Wladyslaw Zarczynski, Barbara (Rodziewicz) Witrzens, Krystyna (Stopnicka) Mucha [pictured], Mieczyslaw Swat, Stefan Halamaj, Krystyna Teresa Andrecka and others in the Kresy-Siberia Hall of Testimonies www.kresy-siberia.org/hot.
Bringing Polish airman's wartime diaries back to life
Kresy-Siberia member Barbara Poulter, from Capetown, South Africa, has generously agreed to share the wartime diaries [pictured] of her late father, Oswald Waldemar Krydner, [pictured] a Polish Air Force photographer serving in the 304 "Silesian" Bomber Squadron fighting alongside the RAF. However, the 400 page handwritten document first had to be scanned, transcribed and translated from Polish to English. An anonymous donor generously contributed 1,800 GBP (US$2,230) to fund the first half of the work, but we now need to find matching funds to complete the project in the coming months. We plan to showcase the Krydner Diaries online in the Virtual Museum and will also seek a publisher for the full set in Polish and English.
Thank you again for your generous donations of money, time and materials, which all contribute to the survival and strengthening of the Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum's mission.
With gratitude and warm regards,
Anna Pacewicz & Stefan Wisniowski
Kresy-Siberia Foundation
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