POLcast

In Episode 73 - you will hear:

Interviews:

• The risk is obvious, but it doesn’t matter

The pandemic as experienced by someone who risks her life every day, a front line worker.

• Polish Easter

At the beginning of March, long before we realized the full scope of what was going on around us, I recorded a conversation with Maria Różanska of Just Be Cooking about Polish Easter traditions.

Our world has changed completely. POLcast has now been transformed to COVID-19 themed podcast and will be released more frequently that once a month - every two (or three) weeks, depending on how much strength I will have to produce it. 

In Episode 72 you will hear one interview only:

This is a conversation with Dr. Rafal Kustra, Associate Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

• “Memory is Our Homeland” – a tribute to those whose story was never told

• Canada’s dark past resonates with Poles in Poland 

• Pączki –Just Be Cooking Maria Rozynska is talking about the International Pączki Day and the magic od pączki making. To attend the Just Be Cooking Pączki event and other evets, see HERE

• A no-barrier approach to Polishness

It’s fantastic that children of emigrants, Poles who settled in other countries such as Canada, even though they were often born and educated here, are interetsed in their roots, cultural heritage and want to incorporate their Polishness into their identity. There are a few Polish Canadian youth organizations, including the one and only Quo Vadis movement, which we have featured on POLcast. A Polish Canadian young professionals’ organization, whose launch we celebrated on POLcast last year - Konekt is a bit different from other such groups. It’s been growing and expanding.

• Cooking, teaching and singing - all in one

I am introducing to you our new POLcast collaborator - Maria Rozynska and her Just Be Cooking. Maria will be collaborating with POLcast and will have her own segment in each episode. 

Maria Rozynska created an innovative project in Toronto called Just Be Cooking - where people make food (not only Polish) under expert supervision, hear about its history and cultural signficance, listen to live music, and eat the food that they cooked in a communal meal. 

• How can languages save your life?

How can knowing multiple lanuages help you stay alive? A Polish American academic Tadeusz “Tad” Haska survived WWII and the stalinist repressions thanks to his unusual linguistics talent. This incredible story was lovingly described by his granddaughter Stefanie Naumann in her book  How Languages Saved Me: A Polish Story of Survival, released in September 2019 with Koehler Books.

• Goodbye to Laura and Peter Żerański - please but their great heritage cookbooks (you can learn about them here)

• Music - POLcast's surprise at the end of the episode.

Arthur Lewinowicz, a 27-year-old violin and viola player, composer and teacher, whose life mission is to help kids with various disabilities and special needs learn to play the violin and enjoy music, has been fighting cancer since August.

Marta Hanyżkiewicz, born in Poland, is a student of business and psychology at New York University and Baruch College in New York City. She is blind but has decided to live her life like any other person her age who can see.

• 50th segment of Smacznego! Eating Polish

• Polish carols and Christmas songs by Magda Papierz and Ola Turkiewicz, from their 2015 album "Święta kolędą przyprószone".

On September 20-22, 2019 delegates from all over the world came to Toronto to celebrate 10 years of Quo Vadis, a unique youth movement, one and only in the world. POLcast talks to Ania Barycka, the conference spiritus movens, organizer and veteran.

While at the 10th QV conference in Toronto, I met a really enthusiastic young Pole Szymon Motylek, who now lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. His life is quite a story...

I met Ericsson Singh at Quo Vadis. Born in Hong Kong, he loves Poland, speaks the language and is very active in the Polish Club at the University of Toronto. He sees his future in Poland with his Polish fiancee Kinga. What a story!

and

• Smacznego! Eating Polish - Polish goulash (gulasz)

• Music - POLcast's surprise at the end of the episode (a Polish Canadian nominated for a Grammy 2020).

• Was it worth it? A story of an immigrant's journey

Liliana Arkuszewski lives in Ottawa. Her book about her immigration journey written in Polish has now been translated to English and recently published. 

• A true hero who risked his life to save others

Mr. Franciszek Paslawski, who just passed away in September 2019, was the last Righteous Among Nations still living in Canada. This is his story and the story of those who owe him their lives.

• In love with Dawson City, Yukon

Matylda Lis, a vivacious young Polish Canadian woman who travels all over the world, has fallen in love with Dawson City, Yukon, famous for the Klondike gold rush. Matylda spends all her summers there and has become a part of its community.

and

• Smacznego! Eating Polish - plum crumble

• Music - POLcast's surprise at the end of the episode.

Wanda Kościa talks to Piotr Szkopiak, British writer/director and his most recent film “The Last Witness”, a thriller which talks about the Katyn 1940 monumental masacre, in itself a tragedy, but also about another tragic aspect of it - the coverup by the Allies, who didn’t want to reveal the Soviet guilt, ascribing it to the Germans. The film also shows the fate of Polish refugees after WWII who lived for years in displaced persons’ camps in Britain, unable to return to their motherland controlled by the communist Soviet Union after the war, and unable to openly talk about why they had to stay in Britain and what had happened.

Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology - everybody talks about these hot terms but not everyone understands what they are all about. It's all explained by Thomas Jankowski, the Chief Digital & Growth Officer at Coinsquare, Canada’s leading exchange for trading Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital currencies.

and

• Smacznego! Eating Polish - super apple recipes

• Music- POLcast's surprise at the end of the episode.

Why is it that not only people with Polish roots but also people who have no Polish blood in them study Polish literature, culture and language in countries outside Poland such as Canada?

Kaszuby, an area in northern Ontario, about 200 kilometres west of Ottawa, named after the part of northern Poland from which the first settlers came, is the site of the first Polish settlement in Canada. The Kashubian language and childhood memories...

Bill Johnston, a professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University and an award winning prolific translator of Polish literature of all genres and epochs, did the unthinkable - translated the legendary Polish national epic "Pan Tadeusz" by Adam Mickiewicz (1834), in verse. “Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania” was published by Achipelago Books in 2018. How did he do that?

and

• Smacznego! Eating Polish - super beet recipes

• UPDATES - what's new in the POLcast family? Recent achievements of POLcast interviewees.

• Music- POLcast's surprise at the end of the episode.