The article presents the military fortifications built by the Germans during World War II near Tomaszów Mazowiecki in the years 1940–1944, especially the long belt of fortifications called Piliza Stellung, although it focuses on a relatively short section running along the Pilica River from Sulejów to Inowłódz and Lubocz (near Rzeczyca). The paper discusses various types of shelters, and more broadly presents the preserved military fortifications in Tomaszów Mazowiecki and the railway shelter complexes (“Anlage Mitte”) in (...) Konewka and Jelenia. (shrink)

“Gazeta Urzędowa Tomaszowska” (“Tomaschower Amtliche Zeitung”) was an organ of the Municipality of Tomaszów Mazowiecki. It appeared twice a week from December 1915 to June 1917. The magazine was printed in German and Polish. It contained ordinances and announcements of the occupying central and local authorities, as well as semi-official and private announcements. In total, 160 issues of the magazine were published. The article discusses the content of TAZ, emphasizing the undeniable historical value of the magazine for the (...) history of Tomaszów Mazowiecki during the First World War. (shrink)

The concepts of saga and rhetorical vision constitute an element of the method of rhetorical criticism of fantasy theme analysis, introduced by Ernest Bormann. A saga is a continuously told and re-told story of the accomplishments of an individual, a group, or an institution, explaining its place in the world, the purpose of its existence, and its modus operandi. The paper is an attempt at presenting the saga built around Bogoria, i.e. the local free monthly from Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland, (...) which has been published since 1992 by the local Cultural Centre. The material for analysis comes from various jubilee and anniversary editions, which contain mainly articles and manifestos where the editors try to explain their perception of what a local newspaper should be and what role it should play in a local community. The paper discusses the transformation of the Bogoria’s saga from the righteous-social model to the social one. (shrink)

Polish intellectual historian Leszek Kołakowski proposed in the 1960s an innovative, now virtually forgotten, reimagining of a crucial concept in the history of Roman Catholicism: the idea of "Counter-Reformation." Kołakowski's lifelong affinity for early modern Europe's Catholic dissidents led him into dialogue in the era of Vatican II with Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the leader of a movement of young Polish reformers who styled themselves "Catholic socialists." Seeing them as the bedrock of a new Catholic Counter-Reformation, Kołakowski sketched the role he (...) hoped Poland might play in reinventing not only Catholicism, but religious life in the modern world. (shrink)

In the Thirties, European personalism was an inspirational philosophical movement, with its birthplace in France, but with proponents and sympathizers in many other countries as well. Following the Second World War, Christian-Democratic politicians translated personalistic ideas into a political doctrine. Sometimes they still refer to personalism, but most often this reference is little more than a nostalgic salute. In the mainstream of Anglo-Saxon political philosophy, there are practically no references to personalistic philosophers. Is personalism exhausted as a philosophy or political (...) ideology? Yes and no. Paul Ricoeur, writing in Esprit , summed up the situation like this: “personalism is dead”, but he was careful to mention a “return of the person”. Indeed, no tradition or movement can simply perpetuate itself. It must, in order to continue making history, always abolish itself as a `system' so as to make room for the unsaid and the unthought in its tradition, an idea that Mounier also fervently believed in.To better situate the current discussion of personalism, however, it is necessary to look back to the original characteristics of personalism in the Thirties. As a response to the crisis provoked by the economic depression, failing democracy and existential uncertainty, there arose in France a number of `non-conformist movements' who labelled themselves personalistic. They did not constitute a unified movement with a commonly shared theory. It was rather a collection of `personalisms'. The article by the historian Christian Roy about the ecological personalism of Bernard Charbonneau and Jacques Ellul sheds interesting light on the multiple origins of French personalism, which is all too easily identified with the work of Maritain and Mounier alone. The work of Jacques Maritain, and the network of writers and artists surrounding him, undoubtedly remains a significant historical reference point when speaking of personalism.Another group was formed around Alexandre Marc who, along with Raymond Aron, Arnaud Dandieu, Daniel-Rops and Denis de Rougemont, kept the journal Ordre Nouveau alive for five years . They elaborated the idea of federalism as a way out of liberalism and totalitarianism. The most important and durable group, however, was formed by the movement and journal Esprit, founded in 1932 by Emmanuel Mounier and George Izard. In order to stress the historical importance of Esprit, we are including here a testimony from 1982, written by Paulette Mounier, the founder's wife, in which she looks back on 50 years of Esprit. After the war, some new and related groups formed, such as Economy and Humanism around Louis-Joseph Lebret. An historical survey of the dissemination of personalistic centres and movements, not only in France but over all of Europe, would be material for a stimulating historical research project. In this issue, there will also be mention of, among others, the Prague personalism of Jan Patocka and Vaclav Havel, the Leuven personalism of Louis Janssens, and the Polish personalism of Tadeusz Mazowiecki and others. But this list is far from exhaustive.What unites these various branches of the personalistic tree? It is a certain conception — or better perhaps: a certain attitude to the human person. Personalists were not seeking in the first instance a new academic theory about the person, but rather a practical philosophy of engagement. In the Thirties, quite a few personalists finished their university studies and chose not for an academic career but for non-conformist, demanding and vulnerable commitments with limited financial means. What motivated them? Primarily a strong sense that the time in which they were living was a turning point, one which was being ignored by the academic world. They interpreted the diverse economic, political and cultural crisis phenomena as symptoms of a more global crisis of civilization which demanded a response through radical change.Hence a certain rhetoric of a `new order', `spiritual revolution', `radical reform' and `rebirth'. But the rhetoric was supported by innovative ideas regarding political federalism, the third way economy and human alienation. The motivation for all this derived from a strong commitment to defend the concrete human person against the arrogance of systems, bureaucracies and ideologies, while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls of individualism — the reason why some personalists always qualified personalism as `communitarian'.In fact, much of what presents itself as communitarian philosophy today is a retrieval of personalistic themes from the Thirties applied to the current situation, a situation which is also interpreted by communitarians as a global cultural crisis. One should not forget, however, that alongside and sometimes opposed to the communitarian theme with its call to bring people back to their communitarian roots, personalists underscored the priority of metaphysics over politics, a theme that can likewise be found in the writings of personalistic dissidents in Eastern Europe. In the words of Mounier in Qu'est-ce que le personnalisme : “personalism combines faith in a certain human absolute with a progressive historical experience”.To what extent is personalistic thinking still relevant today? Its current relevance will be examined in three ways. In the first section, a number of articles are presented which illustrate the active presence of personalistic thought in the domains of politics and applied ethics. Vaclav Havel sent one of his recent addresses in which he links the theme of human rights with that of a world spirituality. His article is preceded by an introduction by Guido Van Heeswijck, situating Prague personalism.The need for an orientational philosophy of the person is not only manifest today in the political arena. Developments in economics, ecology, health care, the media, technology and in the world of the professions have had an extraordinarily large impact on the human person's lifeworld. The whole area of applied ethics requires a dynamic and orientational concept of the person. The contributions by Paul Schotsmans and Luk Bouckaert are seeking a personalistic point of departure for applied ethics. The more historical article by Christian Roy on ecological personalism has been included in the first section because it can be inspiring for an environmental ethics.The second section is more philosophical. To what extent does the `personalistic' conception of the person put forward in the Thirties still have any relevance today, following the waves of structuralism, post-structuralism and postmodernism? Paul Ricoeur's article, Approaching the Human Person — originally published in Esprit in 1990 and now translated for the first time — can be seen as a reference text. Ricoeur shows in what sense the concept of the person must be broadened in order to continue functioning. The person as `narrative identity' can only write history through the medium of language and institutions. Starting from very different assumptions, the articles by Louis Janssens & Joseph Selling and the analysis of Roland Breeur also explore the idea that a person is what he is only when his identity is opened up, touched by an exteriority or conceived as a focal point . It is this radical openness and vulnerability that gives the person its historical and transcendent dynamic, and prevents us from encapsulating it in existing systems, theories and power relations. The connection with Emmanuel Levinas and his hermeneutic of the idea of the infinite is an obvious one to draw.The third section contains a historical survey in which a number of active `personalistic' centres and journals are presented.Various European centres that appeal explicitly to some form of personalistic thinking were posed the following questions: What is the main historical reference to personalism at your centre? and How do you implement, today, a personalist credo in your work? John Dick organized the responses to these questions under a number of headings. This survey aims to provide not so much an exhaustive but a representative picture of the ways in which European personalism lives on as a mosaic of centres engaged in everyday history. (shrink)

An account of a mission to help the Warsaw insurgents by Home Army soldiers from Mińsk Mazowiecki, a small town near Warsaw, and from the county of Mińsk. The mission was called to a forced halt and disarmed by the Red Army, depriving the Warsaw insurgents of the help they needed so badly. Eventually, many of the participants of the mission were sent to the labor camps in the Soviet Union.