Hania took me to physical therapy yesterday and, after she had left, the Hispanic woman at reception asked me where she was from. "She has an accent," she said, in her accented English.
"Poland," I replied.
She then expressed her admiration for the generosity the Poles are showing to Ukrainian refugees. And I thought how refreshing it was to say the word "Poland" and then hear praise instead of condemnation.
The Warsaw Philharmonic, presenting a program of Moniuszko, Chopin, and Brahms in Miami last night, began the evening with the Ukrainian national anthem. At the end of the night the orchestra received a standing ovation that, I suspect, was not just about the music.
It was a wonderful weekend for people who like college basketball and tennis, and a great one if you went to Villanova and married a Polish woman in Warsaw.
In Poland, plaques commemorating people who died during World War II note that they were the victims of Nazi, not German, forces. Perhaps when the war is over in Ukraine, plaques can specify that the murders were perpetrated not by Russia but by Putin.
Last night I drove down to Books & Books in Coral Gables to attend my first post-pandemic book reading. John Pomfret, former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, talked about his new book From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance. There were about 20 people in attendance, many with connections to Poland. (The event was sponsored by Miami’s American Institute of Polish Culture.) And most of the questions were not about the subject of the book, intelligence cooperation between the U.S. and Poland with regard to Iraq, but about the current situation in Poland and Ukraine. Afterwards, I spoke with a young woman from Rzeszow, who said her parents have been helping refugees. “But they all want to go to the big cities,” she said. “We’re in the countryside, and there’s no work for them there.”
Polish assistance to Ukraine has been extensive, including, not surprisingly, jokes.
Putin visits a fortune teller, who says she sees him in a car going past waving, cheering crowds.
"Do I wave back?" Putin asks.
"No," the fortune teller says. "It's a closed casket."