Mariusz Brymora, and Ambassador's Confession at the Bolton Hall Museum, 25 March 2023 at 6:30 pm

Helena Modjeska Art & Culture Club invites members and friends interested in the history of Poland, its heroes and secrets to an interesting meeting with the former Consul of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, writer and editor Mariusz M. Brymora. The topic of the meeting will be the newly published book by Romuald Spasowski, entitled Ambassador's Confession, which was edited from over 3,000  pages down to 750 pages by Mr. Brymore.

The meeting will be held on Saturday, March 25, 2023 at 6:30 pm at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga; 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91042. Admission free, RSVP to prezes@modjeska.org. During the meeting the audience will be able to buy books and get an autograph with the editor's dedication. After talking with P. Brymora, we invite you for kabanosy, hors d'oeuvres and beverages.

AMBASSADOR ROMUALD SPASOWSKI

(Brief Biography From Wikipedia, alas full of errors, to be corrected during the event and as described in the book).

 F. Romuald Spasowski (August 20, 1920 – August 9, 1995), was a Polish politician, ambassador and the best known defector from PRL in 1981.  The Spasowski family was active in the Polish resistance during World War II. Spasowski and his father were arrested several times by the Gestapo. His father committed suicide in 1941 after being tortured by the Nazis. Spasowski hid in his mother's home in Milanówek for a time, where the family harbored several Jewish families. Spasowski served on the Central Auditing Commission, which maintained and audited the party's finances. He later served as a member of the Polish War Crimes Mission at the Nuremberg trials. Fluent in both English and Spanish, Spasowski served at the embassy in London from 1951 to 1953 and then two years as ambassador to Argentina. 

Spasowski's first tour as Polish ambassador to the United States lasted from 1955 to 1961. In 1964, Spasowski represented Poland as a member of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam, which was established to mediate peace between Hanoi and Saigon during the Vietnam War. From 1967 till 1971 Spasowski served as Poland's ambassador to India. In the mid-1970s, Spasowski was named Deputy Foreign Minister in the Polish Foreign Ministry. In the mid-1970s he also served as the Chief of the Polish Military Mission in West Berlin. 

Spasowski returned to the United States for a second tour as ambassador in 1978. His wife had been a practicing Catholic for many years. The former Wanda Alina Sikorska was a cousin of Poland's former prime minister, General Władysław Sikorski. Wanda Spasowska's influence and religious views helped undermine her husband's belief in Communism. For years, Spasowski's faith in the Polish Communist regime had been wavering, but the ascension of a Pole to the papacy in 1978 provided the impetus for a clear break. The day Karol Cardinal Wojtyła became Pope John Paul II, Spasowski attended a special Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C., taking a place of honor in the first pew. It marked the beginning of an increasingly contentious relationship with the Polish Foreign Ministry.

The formation of Solidarity in September 1980 deeply moved Spasowski. He is said to have privately voiced support for Solidarity's leader, Lech Wałęsa, and the labor movement's goals. Spasowski's daughter and son-in-law, supporters of Solidarity, fled to the United States early in 1981 and received asylum. In October 1981, the Polish government ordered Spasowski home. He protested, and the recall order was rescinded. On December 13, 1981, Polish government leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski started a crack-down on Solidarity, declaring martial law. On the afternoon of December 19, 1981, Spasowski telephoned the U.S. State Department to announce that he was defecting and requesting asylum. The next day he told a worldwide radio audience that he had defected to show support for Solidarity and Lech Wałęsa. "The cruel night of darkness and silence was spread over my country," he said. The Polish government confiscated his family's property, branded him a traitor and condemned him to death in absentia.

Spasowski US Residence, National Park Service

Spasowski toured the United States throughout the 1980s, denouncing the Communist regime in Poland and playing a leading role in the U.S. Information Agency's anti-Communist television program, 'Let Poland Be Poland'. In 1985, Spasowski, who was of a Calvinist family, was baptized a Catholic by Philadelphia's Archbishop John Krol.  In 1986, Spasowski published his autobiography, The Liberation of One, and eventually became an American citizen. After the overthrow of Communist rule in Poland in 1989, Spasowski's death sentence was revoked. In 1993, Polish President Lech Wałęsa restored Spasowski's Polish citizenship. [biographic information cited from Wikipedia]

MARIUSZ M. BRYMORA

Mariusz M. Brymora – philologist. He holds an MA diploma from the Department of English Language of Maria Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin and a postgraduate diploma in British Culture and History from the University of Warsaw and Ruskin College in Oxford. 

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he worked as an academic teacher and translator. His literary translations include short stories by Bernard Malamud published by Wydawnictwo Literackie in Kraków in 1989. From 1994 until 1998, he served as a Councilman and then the Deputy Mayor of his native city of Radom, Poland. Career diplomat – in the Polish Foreign Service since 1999. 

Mr. Brymora served as the Deputy Consul General in Chicago (1999 – 2003), Public Affairs Counselor at the Embassy of Poland in Washington D.C. (2005 – 2009), and Consul General in Los Angeles (2013 - 2017). While in Warsaw, he was the Deputy Director of the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he supervised the promotional activity of Polish diplomatic missions and the screenplay and production of Polska? Tak! - a short documentary on Poland’s image as seen through the eyes of the world’s greatest cultural celebrities. 

His books include: 400 Years of Polish Immigrants in America – published in 2008 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first Poles’ arrival at Jamestown, Virginia. He also wrote a short history of the Embassy of Poland in Washington DC (2009). In 2019 M. Brymora published One Hundred years of Polish Diplomatic Presence in The United States: 1919-2019 which was followed a year later by its Polish version titled: Historia polskiej dyplomacji w Stanach Zjednoczonych 1919-2019.

In 2022 he published the Polish version of the memoires of ambassador Romuald Spasowski under the title Ambassador’s confession.

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE EVENT

Mariusz Brymora with wife, President Maja Trochimczyk, Andrew and Lila Dowen who hosted the guests, and Secretary Beata Czajkowska

Mariusz Brymora with certificate of Honorary Membership in the Modjeska Club, Maja Trochimczyk and Beata Czajkowska.