The Polish Army Veterans Association of America 119 East 15 Street New York, NY 10003

Join us as publisher and photographer Janusz Rosikon discusses renowned historian Professor Norman Davies‘ latest epic history, Trail of Hope, following in the footsteps of General Wladyslaw Anders.

Following the conquest of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish families were torn from their homes and sent eastwards to the arctic wastes of Siberia. Prisoners of war, refugees, those regarded as “social criminals” by Stalin’s regime, and those rounded up by sheer chance were all sent “to see the Great White Bear.”

However, with Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa just two years later, Russia and the Allied powers found themselves on the same side once more. Turning to those that it had previously deemed “undesirable,” Russia sought to raise a Polish army from the men, women and children that it had imprisoned within its labor camps. In this remarkable work, Professor Davies draws from years of meticulous research to recount the compelling story of this unit, the Polish II Corps or Anders Army, and their exceptional journey from the Gulag of Siberia through Iran, the Middle East and North Africa to the battlefields of Italy to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with Allied forces.

Complete with previously unpublished photographs and first-hand accounts from the men and women who lived through it, this is a unique visual and written record of one of the most fascinating episodes of World War II.

Rosikon will discuss how the book came about and the work his press does to promote Polish history and heritage. He will be joined by Dr. Teofil Lachowicz, of the Polish Army Veterans Association of America.

A photographer, a member of the Polish Journalists’ Association, Association of Polish Artistic Photographers, Janusz Rosikon‘s photographs have been featured in TIME, Newsweek, Schweizer Illustrierte, Reader’s Digest, Rozaniec, and Viva!. His work has been exhibited in Warsaw’s Stara Galeria, the Barbican Centre in London, Oxford University, the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilnius, the Piastow Castle in Glogow, Bielsko-Biala Castle, Wroclaw City Hall, Torun City Hall, Warsaw’s Stara Pomaranczarnia, the Parliament of the Republic of Poland, Vienna City Hall, and Dayton University in Toronto.
Rosikon is the author of the photo books The Treasures of Culture on Jasna Góra, The Mariacki Church in Krakow, Warsaw, Polish Madonnas, The Madonnas of Europe, Polish Shares, Paper Money on Polish Land, Saints’ Lexicon,Polish Town Halls, Angels, and Faith. His photography is featured in private collections in Poland, Great Britain, Canada, Crete, and Switzerland.

Click here to learn more about the book and to purchase a copy.

This event is co-presented by the Polish Book Institute, Rosikon Press, the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York, and the Polish Army Veterans Association in America.