World War II and Solidarity
After more than a century of foreign rule, Poland reemerged as an independent nation at the end of World War I—only to lose its sovereignty again during World War II under Nazi and later Soviet occupation. Communist control persisted until 1989. This gallery explores the dramatic challenges, resilience, and triumphs of the Polish people throughout this turbulent century.
Highlights of the gallery include:
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Polish Mauser rifles produced at state arms factories in Warsaw and Radom
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Personal diaries of Poles exiled to Kazakhstan and Siberia during World War II, including one later published in Polish and another uniquely illustrated rather than written
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Local newspapers from the Chicopee and Springfield area announcing the outbreak of World War II and documenting Warsaw’s heroic defense
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Stories and documents from the Warsaw Uprising, offering powerful firsthand perspectives on one of the war’s most significant acts of resistance
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Photographs from Dachau concentration camp, providing sobering visual testimony to the experiences of prisoners during the Holocaust
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A display dedicated to Wojtek the Bear, the beloved “soldier” of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps, featuring collar tabs bearing his image and a map of Monte Cassino created by the 12th Geographic Company
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Artifacts from the Solidarity movement, including posters, pins, and stamps, as well as the diary of imprisoned activist Wiesław Olszak and a rosary he crafted from bread while held in Potulice
Leokadia Rowińska
Rowińska lived in Warsaw throughout World War II and, at a young age, became involved with the Polish Home Army. She served as a courier, monitoring German movements and relaying vital information during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Captured by German forces, she was sent to Oberlangen Prison, a camp that held approximately 1,700 female prisoners.
Displayed beside her leather bag is a diary fashioned from burlap taken from the ticking of her bedding. Within its pages, she created a calendar and recorded her experiences in Oberlangen.
On April 12, 1945, the camp was liberated by the First Polish Armoured Division. The following week, soldiers of the Polish Armed Forces arrived; one of them would later become her husband.
Rowińska survived the war and eventually made her way to Belgium before settling in Northampton, Massachusetts, which she would come to call home.
Czesław Chołewa
In February 1940, Soviet troops came to the home of Czesław Chołewa (Chester) and gave his family only 30 minutes to pack their most important belongings before they were deported to Siberia. There, Chołewa was forced to work cutting down trees. His family was able to leave Siberia, however, after the German invasion of Russia in June 1941. Chołewa and his father joined the Free Polish Army, while his mother and siblings were resettled in Africa. The family was not reunited until eight years later after the war. Chester eventually made his way to Britain where his request to join the Air Force was denied because he had never finished high school. Instead, he became a paratrooper who served with the Polish Armed Forces in the West. The above photograph was taken of Chester while serving with the Polish paratrooper brigade in England in 1944.
In his journal, Czesław Chołewa wrote about the night that the Russians came to his family’s door and his experience during the days in the boxcar traveling to the Siberian forced labor camps. Some of his journal entries were added to the book The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia, An Historical Narrative Based on the Written Testimony of the Polish Siberian Survivors, (polish center guide). In another journal he wrote about his life while in Siberia.
After the war ended in 1948, Cholewa was able to reconnect with his family in England, where he met and married his wife Maria who was also Polish. Together they followed Cholewa’s cousin to America and settled in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Chester Cholewa was a resident of Holyoke until he died at 90 years of age in 2015.