Science, Tech & Environment
Living on Earth
June 24, 2017
The Białowieża Forest in Poland and Belarus contains some of the last remaining old-growth forests in Europe. Protections are strong in Belarus, but some areas in Poland are managed as commercial forest and the Polish government has now authorized a threefold increase in logging.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Unearthing photos and memories of life in the Lodz ghetto
PRI's The World
March 22, 2017
In 1944 Henryk Ross buried his negatives. He was the official photographer of the Lodz ghetto in Poland. The ghetto was being liquidated, and Ross was unsure if he would survive to retrieve his work. He did.
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Politics
Policing the language of the Holocaust in Poland
PRI's The World
August 18, 2016
This week the right-wing Polish governing party proposed a new law to outlaw the use of phrases like "Polish death camp" or "Polish concentration camp."
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Conflict & Justice
Moscow has a long history of making interesting excuses for its military interventions
PRI's The World
August 12, 2014
NATO says a Russian invasion of Ukraine is "highly probable." The Ukrainian government says a large convoy of humanitarian aid coming from Russia is just a "Trojan horse." If the humanitarian crisis is indeed a pretext for an invasion, it certainly wouldn't be Moscow's first time.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Photos: A Polish village still struggles with its history. In World War II, people killed their Jewish neighbors
PRI's The World
July 13, 2017
The Jewish residents of the Polish village of Jedwabne were killed July 10, 1941. For years the village attributed the massacre to German soldiers. In 2000, historian Jan Gross wrote a book that told a different story, that the Jews were killed by their Polish neighbors. The book caused an uproar in Poland and the story of Jedwabne continues to reverberate in Poland today.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Leonardo Da Vinci imagined this instrument, but it never became real until now
PRI's The World
November 19, 2013
Famed Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci detailed a design for a new instrument in his Codex Altanticus. But it never moved beyond his sketchbook. Now, more than 500 years later Polish pianist Slawomir Zubrzycki has built and played the inventor's viola organista.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Poland’s right-wing government thinks this WWII museum isn’t ‘glorious’ enough
PRI's The World
February 23, 2017
Updated
In Poland, a recently opened WWII museum was embroiled in a standoff with its own government over the correct version of history. And the nationalist government has won.
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Arts, Culture & Media
This Polish grad student wants to help bring Yiddish back to life in Poland
PRI's The World
March 24, 2014
When the Nazis wiped out Jewish life and culture during World War II, it was hard to imagine it would ever come back in Poland. But it is starting to return. Though it's not Jewish people who are leading the way.
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Arts, Culture & Media
A synagogue is born in a little Polish town, but no Jews are left
GlobalPost
May 25, 2016
A non-Jewish Polish retiree had a dream to rebuild his hometown like it was before the Nazis wiped out all the wooden temples and the Jews there.
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Lifestyle & Belief
Story: The fight for Catholicism is on in Poland
PRI's The World
September 27, 2013
"I don't think you'd find an older person in Poland who’s not going to church, but I think that younger generation is rather like me. I'm not going to church. I don't believe in God. I consider myself an atheist."
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Politics
In Eastern Europe, the situation with Russia rekindles some very old fears
The Takeaway
April 04, 2014
Russia's standoff with Ukraine over Crimea seems to have stabilized for the moment. But tensions remain high, and not just in Ukraine. Many in Eastern Europe see parallels between the current situation and the days leading up to World War II.