Why Are Poland’s Nationalists So Popular? Ask a Local Librarian.<br />She has received grant money to hold a conference on those who were sent to Siberia and another grant for an essay contest<br />that asks "people to write about what it means to live in a sovereign country." There is also new money for a "patriotic festival." This year marks 100 years since President Woodrow Wilson called for the establishment of a free and independent Polish state, and the ruling party has been preparing for this anniversary for more than two years, she said.<br />Warsaw POLAND CZECH REP. UKRAINE Slovakia MARCH 2, 2018<br />A small tower of rusted iron, with an inscription and a cross, astride a small section of railroad, the memorial honors the Sybiracy — the many Poles who were deemed a threat<br />and deported to Siberia by the Russians after the 1939 invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union.<br />By MARC SANTORA and STEVEN ERLANGERMARCH 3, 2018<br />PODGORZE, Poland — This month, the local librarian, Wieslawa Klosinska, helped inaugurate a<br />striking new memorial in Podgorze, a hardscrabble little village in northeastern Poland.<br />After more than two years in power, the Law and Justice party<br />and its leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have reshaped the judicial system in ways that critics say undermines the rule of law.<br />"In order to turn Poland into a modern state, free from the burden of the past, friendly to its citizens, one needs not two, but at least three terms." He ran promising<br />that Poland would no longer find itself on its knees, living in fear of Russia to the east and subservient to Germany in the west.<br />The first thing Law and Justice did was deliver a real benefit: a stipend of 500 zlotys, or<br />around $148, a month for every child after the first child for every family in the country.
