For your freedom through ours

Americans of Polish origins and ancestry have long constituted a large and distinctive, if little understood, element in the ethnic mosaic that is the United States. In recent years, however, the interesting and instructive story of their immigration and settlement experiences in this country and their largely successful adaptation to American society has been increasingly a subject for serious study, even as events in Poland, particularly from the 1970s on, have focused an unprecedented amount of attention upon that people's momentous struggle for independence in the face of a seemingly unchallengeable Soviet communist power. Still little appreciated, however, is the saga of organized Polish American efforts to assist Poland in regaining its position as an independent European state and in helping to meet the material and medical needs of its people.^ In fact, these efforts have gone on, practically without interruption, thru nearly one hundred and thirty years, ever since the first immigrant committee was set up in New York in 1863 to rally Americans behind the cause of countrymen fighting to regain Polish independence against Russian imperial rule. These efforts continued during the years of the First and Second World Wars and have been in evidence most recently in the 1980s and early 1990s when Polish Americans mobilized themselves yet again in support of Poland's right to freedom and sovereignty. On the humanitarian side, the efforts of Polish American organizations have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in direct assistance to the Polish people in the times of their greatest misfortune. Billions more have gone to Poland through direct U.S. aid, in no small measure as a consequence of determined lobbying activities by Polish Americans in solidarity with their one-time countrymen.^ For your Freedom through Ours provides the first comprehensive overview of the Polish ethnic community's substantial work for its members' ancestral homeland. At the same time this book serves as a case study of organized ethnic group activism aimed at influencing U.S. foreign policy toward Eastern Europe in ways that have been compatible with this country's historic values and national interests. As the author shows, Polish Americans have contributed more than their share - both to the good of the Polish nation and to the realization of the United States' highest aims in the international arena. -- from dust jacket.