The Exile Mission. Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

Polonia closer together, neither cooperation nor day-to-day coexistence proved easy. For example, the goals of KNAPP included full mobilization of the Americans of Polish descent on behalf of Poland and their activism in support of the war effort and a just peace after the war’s end. According to KNAPP’s historian and cofounder, Wacław Jędrzejewicz, the organization became the arena of both confrontation and negotiation between the divergent leadership styles and methods adopted by the exiles and Polish Americans. Jędrzejewicz thought that the main reason for this not-always-harmonious relationship was the newcomers’ lack of familiarity with American conditions in which the organization had to function. “One could not always utilize similar methods of work from Poland and transfer them to American soil,” he wrote. At the same time, he emphasized that the differences “never related to political matters, but rather to tactical and organizational problems.”¹³¹ The tensions did not prove serious enough to threaten the activities of KNAPP. The Piłsudskiites who took upon themselves the ideological side of these activities, acknowledged the influence and resources of their Polish-American collaborators, Maksymilian Węgrzynek and Frank Januszewski. They were careful to stress the American character and methods accepted by the organization. The first manifesto of KNAPP, published in October 1942, denounced any affiliation with Polish or American political parties, underlined the organization’s ideological independence, and called for the general participation of all Polish Americans. KNAPP never became the mass apolitical organization envisioned by its founders. More than ten years after KNAPP’s inception, Jędrzejewicz saw three main reasons for this failure, all of them directly or indirectly connected to the group’s relationship with Polonia. First and foremost, he claimed, the inadequate political proficiency of American Polonia prompted numerous emotional but uncoordinated manifestations, which carried no political significance during the war. Second, the charitable actions of Rada were perceived by many as sufficiently fulfilling Polonia’s duties towards the old country. The third reason was based on the assumption that the Polish government in exile and not American Polonia should be responsible for Polish politics. In this situation, KNAPP attracted mainly older activists with roots in independence actions on behalf of Poland during World War I.¹³²

      In the cultural realm, many Polish Americans supported the activities of the Piłsudski Institute and PIASA through financial contributions and voluntary work. Neither organization, however, ever developed a mass Polonian membership, and, at least throughout the 1940s and 1950s, they remained largely the domain of Polish exiles and later generations of educated Polish Americans. The complicated nature of the relationship between Polonia and the exiles also can be observed in the example of Tygodnik Polski and its editor, Jan Lechoń. In its first issue, published on January 10, 1943, Tygodnik proclaimed friendly relations with American Polonia to be one of its primary goals. The editorial read: “The one-year-old acquaintance of writers from Poland with their compatriots from America, both through private contacts as well as books and articles, has proved—despite some pessimists’ croaking—that a writer from Poland and a Polish American can understand each other perfectly, that can learn from each other, and that they both desire this understanding and knowledge.”¹³³

      The same goal of building bridges between the exiles and American Polonia was frequently repeated in subsequent issues of Tygodnik. Letters from the readers’ section featured correspondence from Polish-American subscribers—frequently Polish-American priests—including one from Rev. S. A. Iciek, who expressed his genuine excitement over the work of so many recognized Polish intellectuals and artists and pleaded with them: “Stay with us also after the war! Keep up the weakening immigrant spirit.”¹³⁴ Soon, a handful of authors ventured into Polonian communities, presenting reports from visits with miners in Pennsylvania, trips to Polish Chicago, or occasional interviews with Polonia activists.¹³⁵ Beginning in April 1944, Tygodnik included a page with short notes about events in the Polish-American community and paid more attention to the exploits of the Polish-American soldiers fighting with the American army in Europe. In an unprecedented move, the entire expanded issue of Tygodnik of May 28, 1944, celebrated the creation of the Polish American Congress in Buffalo, New York, and was devoted to American Polonia, its history, organizations, and achievements.¹³⁶ In 1946 and 1947, for reasons that included a rather thinly veiled desire to attract financial backing, Tygodnik made a conscious effort to reach out to Polonia. At that time Polonia activist Francis Wazeter began publishing excerpts from his radio show, Talks with Polonia, and distinguished Polish-American figures and business people were featured in the column Profiles (Sylwetki).¹³⁷

      In 1946 Lechoń wrote an extensive report on his trip to Chicago and on the author’s evening of poetry organized for the Chicago audience. First, he expressed his anxiety that no one was going to attend the meeting: “For certainly everyone is tired and overworked, and not many would bother to occupy one free Sunday afternoon with my lecture.” But, he added, his work for Tygodnik brought out numerous examples of vivid interest among American Polonia for intellectual pleasures, good books, and good poetry. When the lecture began, the spacious hall of the Polish Museum of America was filled with people. Many Polonia activists, including the busy Charles Rozmarek, were in the audience. “His presence is also a special declaration that Mr. Rozmarek properly esteems the present significance of culture and art for national life; it is a declaration and a call for others,” commented Lechoń.¹³⁸ Tygodnik, however, struggled financially, and its editors had to look for support from other sources, both in America and abroad. Rozmarek and the PAC did not show any interest in supporting an enterprise that they considered elitist and that had no clear appeal to the broader masses of American Polonia. By the end of 1946, in private correspondence to Aleksander Janta, an angry and disillusioned Lechoń would write of Rozmarek as a symbol of “the ocean of indifference” drowning the more ambitious initiatives.¹³⁹ Despite these efforts to extend the publication of Tygodnik, the weekly had to be discontinued for lack of funds. The last issue of Tygodnik closed with the poignant quotation from Joachim Lelewel, a nineteenth-century Polish politician, historian, philosopher, and representative of the Great Emigration. Lelewel’s words expressed a pure, Romantic version of the exile mission and sounded like a testament that the new exiles had a duty to fulfill:

      Exile is an indescribable affliction; one needs to experience it to learn the magnitude of its misery. There is no language that could fully depict it. It contains, however, something that lifts a person up, calling forth his strength and courage. In misfortune, a captive is made to give himself up to his fate, bound by impotence and slavery. An exile is free and able to rely on his free will and to resist misfortune. It is up to him to reject and defeat his fate, which afflicts him with so many adversities. . . . Moreover, an exile in his fragile freedom has the responsibility of action, stemming from his being a Pole and a human being. He took this responsibility on himself of his own accord, went into exile of his own free will, and has the means and can meet his duty.¹⁴⁰

      Lechoń survived in New York a few years longer, with financial support and care from both his Polish friends and some wealthy Polish-American sponsors. In 1956 he committed suicide by jumping from a New York skyscraper.¹⁴¹

      Lack of knowledge about each other was, perhaps, one of the greatest obstacles in the development of closer personal relationships between exiles and Polish Americans. Kazimierz Wierzyński dedicated a moving essay, “The Walnut Tree Called Dewajtis,” to Long Island Polonia, made up of generations of successful farmers.¹⁴² Unlike Lechoń, Wierzyński did not look to Polonia only for its resources; he approached this community with genuine and warm interest. He noted the accomplishments of the Polish immigrants, their struggle for survival, and their attachment to Polish culture. He and his wife made personal friends among the old immigrants, as they did among Americans of non-Polish backgrounds. Irena Lorentowicz, on the other hand, noticeably struggled with her feeling toward Polish Americans. At first patronizing and aloof, at other times moved and enthusiastic, Lorentowicz displayed much curiosity about the lives of Polish Americans and claimed to have formed lasting friendships.¹⁴³

      The wartime group of Polish exiles included an exceptionally high percentage of inteligencja and intellectuals—the social, political, and artistic elite of prewar Poland—who felt entitled to political and cultural leadership. As they struggled to establish contacts with