As the concluding event of its recent annual meeting
in New Orleans in early January 2013, PAHA held its yearly awards banquet at the Bourbon House
restaurant in the French Quarter. On
that occasion, the following list of awardees was announced:
Mieczyslaw
Haiman Award, for sustained contribution to the
study of Polish Americans:
Professor
Emeritus Richard Lukas, who earned his doctorate in
History in 1963 from Florida State University, has published a series of
significant books that deal with Poland, Polish-American relations, and
Polonia's place in these matters.
His book, The
Strange Allies: Poland the United States, 1941-1945 (1978) was one of the
earliest scholarly works to study in depth the World War II relations between
the United States and Poland's exile government. In this book, Dr. Lukas brought to light the
role of American Polonia and its political action organizations (in particular
the National Committee of Americans of Polish Descent, KNAPP, and the Polish
American Congress), KNAPP and the PAC in particular) and their place in
Polish-U.S. relations. This book remains as current and relevant today as it
was years ago when it first appeared.
His second major work, Bitter Legacy: Polish-American Relations in the Wake of World War II
(1982) dealt with, among other significant matters in post war Polish history
and Polish-American relations, the little appreciated subject of the
humanitarian efforts on Poland's behalf that were organized on behalf of the
Polish people.
In addition, Dr. Lukas’s subsequent book, The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under
German Occupation, 1939-1944 (1986), remains the most complete and
fair-minded effort to place what the Nazis did in Poland to all its inhabitants
in its proper context. This work is also
of special importance for Americans of Polish origin who otherwise would have
practically no serious source of information about the Holocaust in occupied
Poland except that which has focused on the tragedy that befell the country's
Jewish citizenry. This book has won high
praise and a third edition has recently appeared, again with a forward by the
eminent historian Norman Davies. In 1994 Prof. Lukas was honored to receive the
Janusz Korczak Award from the Anti-Defamation Committee of the B'nai B'rith.
Oskar
Halecki Award, for an important book or monograph on
the Polish experience in the United States, published in the two years prior to
the year of the award:
Brian
McCook, Borders of Integration: Polish
Migrants in Germany and the United States, 1870-1924 (Athens: Ohio
University Press, 2012).
Borders
of Integration compares Polish immigrant miners in
Pennsylvania in the United States and in the Ruhr Valley in Germany. McCook challenges the views that immigrants
assimilated into their host societies.
It represents the best of international research. Brian McCook is an Associate Dean at Manchester
Metropolitan University.
Distinguished
Service Award, for valuable and sustained service to
PAHA:
Dr.
Thaddeus Gromada and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America
Thaddeus Gromada joined PIASA in 1961, holding posts
such as Secretary General, Vice-President, and Executive Director. He also served as a Professor of European
History at New Jersey City University.
While he edited and contributed books dealing with Polish history,
Gromada and PIASA constantly supported the many activities of PAHA.
Swastek
Prize, for an outstanding article in a given volume of Polish American Studies, as nominated by
the editorial board of the journal:
Myron Momryk, "Ignacy Witczak's Passport,
Soviet Espionage and the Origins of the Cold War in Canada," Polish American Studies 68, no. 2
(2011): 67–84.
Amicus
Poloniae Award, for significant contributions
enhancing knowledge of Polish and Polish-American heritage by individuals not
belonging to the Polish-American community:
Harlan
J. Berk, founder and president of Harlan J. Berk, Ltd.,
Chicago, IL, was the person who noticed that items brought to his business for
sale had come from the Polish Museum of America in Chicago. He did the right
thing and notified authorities, thereby setting in motion the recovery of some
$5 million worth of irreplaceable artifacts missing from the Polish Museum
collections.
Skalny
Civic Achievement Awards, for individuals or groups who
advance PAHA's goals of promoting research and awareness of the Polish-American
experience and/or have made significant contributions to Polish or
Polish-American community and culture:
Blanka
Rosenstiel has worked effectively to raise funds for causes
like the Polish Cultural Center in Washington, District of Columbia and for the
establishment of the Kosciuszko Chair in Polish History, initially established
at the University of Virginia. She served as president of the American Council
of Polish Cultural Clubs and was an agent of change in promoting the
advancement of this organization, now the American Council for Polish Culture.
David
Motak, a graduate of Alliance College in Cambridge
Springs, Pennsylvania, has actively and continuously promoted Polish culture in
a host of ways over the years. He even traveled to Asia in December 2011 to
educate countless people about Polish Christmas customs. Motak is also the highly talented editor of
the Polish Falcon fraternal magazine. This outstanding multi-color 32 page
fraternal publication appears six times a year and is filled with interesting
information about Poland past and present, the Polish American heritage, and
Polish Falcons activities. His work has helped make this fraternal publication
one of the best in the Polish American community.
Mary
Anselmo, President of the Illinois State Division of the
Polish American Congress and Member of the PAC Council of National Directors.
As already noted, Mary deserves recognition for her dedicated leadership as
president of the Illinois PAC. Of further note is her service on the special
national PAC committee that successfully revised the Mission Statement of the
Polish American Congress in 2011 to take into account the Congress' duties and
goals in the world of contemporary free and democratic Poland, one of America's
staunchest allies in NATO.
Professor Roman Solecki, a retired professor of mechanical engineering from University of Connecticut. Prof. Solecki is the author of a popular website “Prominent Poles,” an active participant of Polish cultural internet discussion groups, and a tireless defender of Poland’s good name in the internet and the American media.
Professor
Ewa Thompson of Rice University, a scholarly
specialist in the field of Polish literature, is the founder and Editor of The Sarmatian Review, which since 1981
has taken up a host of subjects relevant to Poland, Polonia, and Polish
American studies, always in an engaging thought-provoking fashion.
Creative
Arts Award, for contributions in the field of creative arts by
individuals or groups who have promoted an awareness of the Polish experience
in the Americas:
Brigid
Pasulka, the descendant of Polish immigrants, lives and
works in Chicago. In the early 1990s, Pasulka spent a year in Kraków, Poland,
learning the language and exploring Polish history and culture. While in Kraków,
she witnessed the economic and social transformations, which Poland went
through after the fall of Communism. A
Long Long Time Ago and Essentially True is Pasulka's first break-through
novel, which brings the readers to the early 1990s Kraków, while at the same
time recalling a love story as it unfolds in the small village in the Polish
mountains in the times of World War II and the Stalinist period. A Long Long Time Ago is a winner of
several national awards, including PEN Hemingway and a National Geographic
Traveler Book of the Month.
The awards banquet is always one of the highlights of PAHA’s annual activities. On this occasion, attendees had the additional pleasure of the company of two of the honorees, Professor Thompson and Mr. Motak, who were able to accept their awards in person.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WINNERS!!!
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This report was written by the outgoing President of PAHA, Prof. Neal Pease. We greatly appreciate his service for our organization and are grateful for his leadership and achievements. Thank you!
