Szanowna Redakcjo i Czytelnicy,
Proszę o poradę, co można jeszcze zrobić w następującej sprawie. W bibliotece publicznej w Newmarket wypożyczyłam książkę "Flight And Freedom Stories of Escape to Canada" . Autorkami są Ratna Omidvar i Dana Wagner.
Obie autorki związane są z Uniwersytetem Ryersona w Toronto. Na stronie 178. w rozdziale 25. czytamy..." in 1941, German troops, Polish SS (Schutzstaffel), and collaborators began herding Jewish families"...
Słyszeliśmy już o polskich obozach koncentracyjnych, teraz mamy polskie Waffen SS. Książka wydana przez Between The Lines in Toronto w r. 2015, jest w bibliotekach i sklepach Chapters. Sponsorzy to rząd Kanady, Ontario Arts Council i Canada Council for the Arts.
Udało mi się otrzymać odpowiedź od Ratny Omidvar z uznaniem błędu i przeprosinami.
Na moją i biblioteki sugestię, aby dołączać erratę, nie otrzymałam już odpowiedzi.
No i co dalej? Nie mogę zrezygnować i zapomnieć o całej sprawie, dlatego piszę.
Zofia Zarkadas
Odpowiedź redakcji: Proszę monitować, a ponadto powiadomić Kongres Polonii Kanadyjskiej.
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Witam Panie Andrzeju,
dzisiaj dostaliśmy taki oto e-mail z naszej katolickiej szkoły. Może Panu się przyda do jakichś artykułów. Dziękuję.
Konrad
Dear Parents and Guardians,
We are writing to with a special request.
You may have read online and in the media that the Government of Ontario has launched the "Talk Ontario" website, asking Ontarians to share their opinions on publicly funded Catholic schools.
In recent years, there has been some growing discussion around the idea of amalgamation of school boards and the elimination of publicly funded Catholic schools. Although we have experienced tremendous academic excellence in our faith-based education and have exemplified many positive contributions to Ontario and our local communities, the funding of Catholic education has been up for debate. Every now and then, the issue resurfaces, re-invigorating the efforts of groups that want to end public funding for Catholic schools in Ontario.
Special interest groups opposed to Ontario's Catholic schools argue that the elimination of Catholic schools through amalgamation would save about $1 billion. This figure has no basis in fact.
The Reality: Education funding in Ontario is per-pupil based. This is the driver of costs and would not change under an amalgated model. The only way to save money through amalgamation would be to close SEVERAL HUNDRED schools in Ontario.
The Reality: If schools were amalgamated and hundreds of schools closed, all Ontario students (across all systems) would be displaced. There is no indication that public school supporters would be prepared to move their children from the local public school in order to accommodate children living closer to a Catholic school or vice versa. There would be disruption and chaos in every community across this province.
The Reality: The cost of amalgamation would far out-strip any savings. The last amalgamation in the education sector happened in 1998 and resulted in the province spending $1.2 billion in additional "transition" costs for that amalgamation (SOURCE: Ministry of Education).
The Reality: Recent research from the University of Western Ontario (Timothy Cobban, 2014) shows that amalgamation does not save money.
The Reality: Catholic and public boards save taxpayers millions of dollars annually through a variety of successful business partnerships in such areas as: co-operative school financing; purchasing; transportation; energy management and other shared services.
Please take a moment to comment in support of publicly funded Catholic education in Ontario's education system on the Talk Ontario website at: https://talks.ontario.ca/idea/amalgamate-catholic-and-public-school-boards
Note: you will need to register in order to provide your comments.
Catholic education is one of the essential pillars in Ontario's publicly-funded educational system, a system which is highly regarded and recognized around the world. Our system is built upon a strong foundation and the future of Catholic education is a shared responsibility for all of our stakeholders. Let's speak up together to ensure that we keep our Catholic schools.
Thank you,
Your School Board Trustees
Halton Catholic District School Board
802 Drury Lane
Burlington, ON L7R 2Y2
905-632-6300
Odpowiedź redakcji: Szanowni Państwo, tu chodzi o nasze dzieci. Szkoły katolickie w ułomny sposób, ale jednak pozwalają na kształcenie w naszej kulturze. Ujmijmy się za nimi w czasach, gdy trwa bezustanna wojna podjazdowa przeciwko katolickiemu kształceniu i wychowaniu.
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Drogi Panie Andrzeju;
Napisałem list do Pani Melanie Joly M.P., poseł w gabinecie rządu kanadyjskiego do spraw dziedzictwa (Minister of Canadian Heritage), w sprawie pomnika ofiar systemu komunistycznego w Ottawie.
Zapraszam innych ludzi, żeby też napisali do Pani Joly, ponieważ sama prosiła o komentarze od ludzi w tej sprawie, np. "I look forward to hearing from all Canadians to ensure the design considerations will result in a memorial that is a place of reflection, inspiration and learning for us all. Melanie Joly M.P. December 17, 2015 – Ottawa, Department of Canadian Heritage".
Jest pewien nacisk różnych ludzi, żeby go przenieść na inne miejsce i żeby był mniejszy. Ja się z tym nie zgadzam i chyba też większość osób, które znają albo mieszkały w systemach komunistycznych w różnych państwach – w Kanadzie jest nas coś 8 milionów.
Dziękuję za uwagę i Państwa pamięć o naszych rodakach.
Andrzej Caruk
Dear Honourable Minister of Canadian Heritage, Ms. Melanie Joly:
Re: Memorial to victims of communism in Ottawa and North Korea's recent threatening gestures *
Considering communist North Korea's "unduly harsh" life sentence on December 16, 2015, to Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim for his Christian missionary activities, and the recent January 6, 2016 provocative claim of a successful Hydrogen bomb detonation, described by Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Hon. Stephane Dion, as a "grave threat to international peace and security", it's about time the memorial in Ottawa for the victims of communism be built, and for it’s critics to stop playing political football with its location, size and design. As a Polish-Canadian immigrant I am well aware of communism's fiercely atheistic and bigoted ideology, along with its brutal consequences. Hopefully, the delay in building the memorial originally scheduled to be built in a suitably esteemed location, besides the Supreme Court of Canada building, is only due to unforeseen previous plans, and not to any hidden motives, i.e. anti-Christian or ethnic bias. Consider however, that the memorial's first and most outspoken opponent, and "the public face of the opposition" was architect Barry Padolsky, who unbelievably revealed in a newspaper story that: "my heroes were people like Karl Marx, Lenin – all the left wing ideologues" Ottawa Citizen (Jan. 1, 2015).
In view of our increasingly dangerous world, there is an urgent need now for a physical reminder of the reality of living (in the past or present) under such a totalitarian ideology as communism, founded by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and further disseminated like a deadly epidemic by Lenin, the Russian revolutionary – a "hero" to some people. This ideological plague called communism is estimated to have killed about 100 million people worldwide, especially: Mao's Great Famine (45 million Chinese death toll); Ukraine's Holodomar (hunger-extermination of 2.5-7.7 million); Cambodias's Killing Fields (2-3 million dead by execution or starvation); Stalin's Great Purge or Great Terror (681,692 executions of numerous ethnic groups in Russia); the exile of 18 million various European peoples to Soviet's forced labor camps (estimated dead into the millions); NKVD (Soviet secret police) Order No.00485 (111,091 Poles executed); and the thousands of Europeans killed under successive Moscow controlled, communist puppet regimes (e.g. 20,000 Polish Home Army patriots executed in communist prisons – notably the hero of Auschwitz, Witold Pilecki).
Sadly many of those who perished under communism have no graves to call their own. As a personal example, in the early 1940's, my country of birth Poland had two million innocent victims fall prey to Russian communist suppression, when by the order of dictator Stalin, they were forcefully dragged from their homes and transported in cattle cars to Siberian labour camps. The majority of them later died of starvation or disease. Stalin also stabbed Poland in the back when he imprisoned 21,857 of the most educated, patriotic and influential citizens in 1939 – mostly Polish officers. Of those, 4,400 were massacred at the Katyn forest in 1940, by the NKVD with a bullet to the back of the head, buried in mass graves and later had the crimes blamed on the Nazis. The rest of the victims have been unaccounted for – likely buried in still undiscovered mass graves.
We in Canada as a multicultural society, where 8 million people can trace their roots to communistic countries, owe this much to the millions killed by communism: not to be afraid to name the perpetrators of those crimes. It is our moral duty. If those that perished under Germany's Nazis deserve our remembrance and museums, do not the 100 million that perished from the hands of their communist tyrants, also deserve a similar dignified memorial?
A magnificent Canadian monument in a prominent location would also be an appropriate answer to present day Stalin like countries like North Korea – a visible symbol of our courage and remembrance. Furthermore, it would be a precious gift to past, present and future generations, since we Canadians pride ourselves on our multiculturalism, freedoms, and our sense of justice for past wrongs. If however, we fail to preserve respectfully this precious gift of the history of nations, would not our country and the whole world risk losing part of its conscience?
Communisms' sinister contribution to mankind's history has been primarily, so far, as evidenced above: worldwide genocides; suppression of whole nations; and additionally a perilously close standoff between the US and the USSR (i.e. Cuban Missile Crisis – 1962), when we miraculously escaped a worldwide cataclysm – a nuclear war with not millions, but potentially billions of victims!
Let's not allow this type of history to repeat itself. All that evil needs to survive and rise up again is to remain hidden and forgotten.
Respectfully submitted,
Dr. Andrzej Caruk
Past member of: Friends of Solidarity (Poland); and Black Ribbon Day Society (International)
Kitchener, Ontario
* References:
1. "Ontario pastor sentenced in North Korea" – The Canadian Press, Waterloo Region Record - December 17, 2015
2. "Dion condemns North Korea" – The Canadian Press, Waterloo Region Record – January 7, 2016.
3. " Memorial – New location for monument to victims of communism" – The Canadian Press, National Post –
December 18, 2015.
4. "Looking behind the controversy" – Elsa Lam, Ottawa Sun – December 29, 2015
5. "Architect Barry Padolsky talks about intensification the LRT and his own home" – Julie Oliver, Ottawa Citizen – January 1, 2015.
Odpowiedź redakcji: To my Panu dziękujemy za działanie, bo właśnie aktywność poszczególnych ludzi jest najważniejsza, o wiele bardziej brana pod uwagę niż działania organizacji. Im więcej naszych pojedynczych głosów z uwagami do posłów i organów administracji, tym lepiej.
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Przez 66 lat czekałem na dzień, kiedy Polskę będą reprezentować Polacy czujący polskiego ducha i godnie będą reprezentować polski interes narodowy w imieniu swoich wyborców. Premier RP Beata Szydło pokazała klasę i obnażyła hipokryzję UE. Liderzy UE sami wykreowali wielkiego lidera w Europie Środkowo-wschodniej, która urośnie w siłę obok rozpadającej się lewicowej Unii. Oby ta debata była przestrogą dla targowiczan. Polska krew jest zbyt cenna, aby ją przelewać w obronie targowiczan.
Boże prowadź moich rodaków polską drogą!
Z wyrazami wdzięczności i podziwu dla rządu i prezydenta RP.
Stanisław Pietras – Kanada
Odpowiedź redakcji: Panie Stanisławie, nie przesadzajmy z peanami, po prostu pojawił się wreszcie normalny polski polityk, który mówi i zachowuje się jak człowiek, a nie jak piesek z psim wzrokiem czekający na pochwałę. Brawo Pani Szydło, ale to tylko unaocznia, jak niskie są polskie standardy życia publicznego. Pani Szydło po prostu zachowała się jak trzeba.
