97-520: Ładoś Group , Bernese Group ( Polish : grupa berneńska or grupa Ładosia , French : groupe bernois ) is a name given to a group of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists who during Second World War elaborated in Switzerland a system of illegal production of Latin American passports aimed at saving European Jews from the Holocaust . It is estimated that thanks to the action about 10,000 people were saved from being sent to German extermination camps. The group consisted of four diplomats from
194-499: A / (spelled a ), / ɔ / (spelled o ) and / u / (spelled u and ó as separate letters). The nasal vowels are / ɛ w̃ / (spelled ę ) and / ɔ w̃ / (spelled ą ). Unlike Czech or Slovak, Polish does not retain phonemic vowel length — the letter ó , which formerly represented lengthened /ɔː/ in older forms of the language, is now vestigial and instead corresponds to /u/. The Polish consonant system shows more complexity: its characteristic features include
291-771: A dialect of Polish. Many Silesians consider themselves a separate ethnicity and have been advocating for the recognition of Silesian as a regional language in Poland . The law recognizing it as such was passed by the Sejm and Senate in April 2024, but has been vetoed by President Andrzej Duda in late May of 2024. According to the last official census in Poland in 2011, over half a million people declared Silesian as their native language. Many sociolinguists (e.g. Tomasz Kamusella , Agnieszka Pianka, Alfred F. Majewicz, Tomasz Wicherkiewicz ) assume that extralinguistic criteria decide whether
388-669: A few culturally and linguistically related tribes from the basins of the Vistula and Oder before eventually accepting baptism in 966. With Western Christianity , Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet , which made it possible to write down Polish, which until then had existed only as a spoken language . The closest relatives of Polish are the Elbe and Baltic Sea Lechitic dialects ( Polabian and Pomeranian varieties). All of them, except Kashubian , are extinct. The precursor to modern Polish
485-520: A large number of branches in all of these areas) offers services available in Polish at all of their cash machines in addition to English and Spanish . According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England and Wales who consider Polish to be their "main" language. In Canada , there is a significant Polish Canadian population : There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to
582-543: A large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures. Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped the standard language ; considerable colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish which is in everyday use. Historically, Polish was a lingua franca , important both diplomatically and academically in Central and part of Eastern Europe . In addition to being
679-543: A lect is an independent language or a dialect: speakers of the speech variety or/and political decisions, and this is dynamic (i.e. it changes over time). Also, research organizations such as SIL International and resources for the academic field of linguistics such as Ethnologue , Linguist List and others, for example the Ministry of Administration and Digitization recognized the Silesian language. In July 2007,
776-513: A letter from Silberschein with the list of persons to whom the documents were to be granted. Rokicki sent Silberschein in turn filled passports or their copies certified by a notary public and a letter from consul Rudolf Hügli in which holders of the passports were informed that they had received a Paraguayan citizenship. Apart from that, many separate confirmations of Paraguay's citizenship were issued. The lists of recipients of such documents contains several thousand names. At first glance it seems that
873-454: A nasal consonant, rather than a nasal vowel. For example, ą in dąb ("oak") is pronounced [ɔm] , and ę in tęcza ("rainbow") is pronounced [ɛn] (the nasal assimilates to the following consonant). When followed by l or ł (for example przyjęli , przyjęły ), ę is pronounced as just e . When ę is at the end of the word it is often pronounced as just [ɛ] . Depending on
970-551: A real "black market" of passports. The gentlemen from the Legation expressed their desire that I would take responsibility for this matter, which I also did on behalf of RELICO . It was RELICO-Legation axis which constituted core of the scheme. Silberschein would send lists of people foreseen to become passport holders to Rokicki who would record them and had Paraguay 's passports fabricated. A typical exchange of correspondence between Silberschein and Rokicki in 1942 and 1943 includes
1067-491: A single word. This applies in particular to many combinations of preposition plus a personal pronoun, such as do niej ('to her'), na nas ('on us'), prze ze mnie ('because of me'), all stressed on the bolded syllable. The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin script but includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics . The Polish alphabet was one of three major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Western and some South Slavic languages,
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#17327910604171164-405: A verse by Jan Brzechwa ) is W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie [fʂt͡ʂɛbʐɛˈʂɨɲɛ ˈxʂɔw̃ʂt͡ʂ ˈbʐmi fˈtʂt͡ɕiɲɛ] ('In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed'). Unlike languages such as Czech, Polish does not have syllabic consonants – the nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel. The consonant /j/ is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede
1261-478: A vowel when it precedes another vowel (it represents /j/ , palatalization of the preceding consonant, or both depending on analysis). Also the letters u and i sometimes represent only semivowels when they follow another vowel, as in autor /ˈawtɔr/ ('author'), mostly in loanwords (so not in native nauka /naˈu.ka/ 'science, the act of learning', for example, nor in nativized Mateusz /maˈte.uʂ/ 'Matthew'). Some loanwords , particularly from
1358-609: Is not known who filled out this document. 1957 Yad Vashem 's study suggests there were more passports – in particular in 1941 during the German invasion of the Soviet Union and after the creation of Jewish ghettos . In some cases bearers of such documents were released from the obligation to live in ghettos and wear a band with the Star of David . The production of passport on a mass scale begun in 1942, after Wannsee Conference , when
1455-569: Is not known who filled them and how they were sent to the Soviet Union . Initially, it was assumed that such activities could be carried individually, since the scheme could be revealed. However, in later years production of similar documents continued. The most known example is the passport obtained by Eli Sternbuch for his future wife Guta Eisenzweig and her mother in November 1941. The Sternbuch family obtained it by contacting Juliusz Kühl. It
1552-447: Is possible to say ko goście zoba czy li? – here kogo retains its usual stress (first syllable) in spite of the attachment of the clitic. Reanalysis of the endings as inflections when attached to verbs causes the different colloquial stress patterns. These stress patterns are considered part of a "usable" norm of standard Polish - in contrast to the "model" ("high") norm. Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were
1649-524: Is the Old Polish language . Ultimately, Polish descends from the unattested Proto-Slavic language. The Book of Henryków (Polish: Księga henrykowska , Latin : Liber fundationis claustri Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Heinrichau ), contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai (in modern orthography: Daj, uć ja pobrusza, a ti pocziwaj ;
1746-529: Is the most widely-used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County , by 26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results, as Vilnius was part of Poland from 1922 until 1939. Polish is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. In Ukraine, it is most common in the western parts of Lviv and Volyn Oblasts , while in West Belarus it is used by the significant Polish minority, especially in
1843-430: The kropka (superior dot) over the letter ż , and the ogonek ("little tail") under the letters ą, ę . The letters q, v, x are used only in foreign words and names. Polish orthography is largely phonemic —there is a consistent correspondence between letters (or digraphs and trigraphs ) and phonemes (for exceptions see below). The letters of the alphabet and their normal phonemic values are listed in
1940-401: The ś in święty ("holy") all represent the sound / ɕ / . The exceptions to the above rule are certain loanwords from Latin, Italian, French, Russian or English—where s before i is pronounced as s , e.g. sinus , sinologia , do re mi fa sol la si do , Saint-Simon i saint-simoniści , Sierioża , Siergiej , Singapur , singiel . In other loanwords
2037-596: The Brest and Grodno regions and in areas along the Lithuanian border. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries. In the United States , Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. According to the 2000 United States Census , 667,414 Americans of age five years and over reported Polish as
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#17327910604172134-903: The Indo-European language family written in the Latin script . It is primarily spoken in Poland and serves as the official language of the country, as well as the language of the Polish diaspora around the world. In 2024, there were over 39.7 million Polish native speakers. It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union . Polish is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics , and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals. The traditional 32-letter Polish alphabet has nine additions ( ą , ć , ę , ł , ń , ó , ś , ź , ż ) to
2231-612: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth 's influence gave Polish the status of lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe . The process of standardization began in the 14th century and solidified in the 16th century during the Middle Polish era. Standard Polish was based on various dialectal features, with the Greater Poland dialect group serving as the base. After World War II , Standard Polish became
2328-522: The United Kingdom and the United States . Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. At the time, it was a collection of dialect groups with some mutual features, but much regional variation was present. Mieszko I , ruler of the Polans tribe from the Greater Poland region, united
2425-536: The University of Bern , facilitated contacts between Jewish organizations and the Legation. In later years he was also nominated as the deputy head of the consular division. He probably also dealt with illegal transport of blank passports. In September 1939, Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and divided into two occupation zones . Nearly 36 million Polish citizens, including over 3 million Jews, were subjected to German and Soviet rule. At
2522-474: The classical languages , have the stress on the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable. For example, fizyka ( /ˈfizɨka/ ) ('physics') is stressed on the first syllable. This may lead to a rare phenomenon of minimal pairs differing only in stress placement, for example muzyka /ˈmuzɨka/ 'music' vs. muzyka /muˈzɨka/ – genitive singular of muzyk 'musician'. When additional syllables are added to such words through inflection or suffixation ,
2619-578: The flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50) , as well as the expulsion of Ukrainians and Operation Vistula , the 1947 migration of Ukrainian minorities in the Recovered Territories in the west of the country, contributed to the country's linguistic homogeneity. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between modern-day vernacular varieties and standard Polish ( język ogólnopolski ) appear relatively slight. Most of
2716-416: The 16th century, which is also regarded as the " Golden Age of Polish literature". The orthography was modified in the 19th century and in 1936. Tomasz Kamusella notes that "Polish is the oldest, non-ecclesiastical, written Slavic language with a continuous tradition of literacy and official use, which has lasted unbroken from the 16th century to this day." Polish evolved into the main sociolect of
2813-457: The 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries). Among the major languages, it is most closely related to Slovak and Czech but differs in terms of pronunciation and general grammar. Additionally, Polish was profoundly influenced by Latin and other Romance languages like Italian and French as well as Germanic languages (most notably German ), which contributed to
2910-486: The 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto (91,810 speakers) and Montreal . The geographical distribution of the Polish language was greatly affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II and Polish population transfers (1944–46) . Poles settled in the " Recovered Territories " in the west and north, which had previously been mostly German -speaking. Some Poles remained in
3007-966: The Axis Powers and the Vichy France. Due to the German pressure, Ładoś failed to deliver his credential letters and enjoyed a minor status of chargé d'affaires. During his de facto ambassadorial post in Bern, Ładoś headed secret operation “Passport Issues” aimed to provide Jews in German-occupied Poland with Latin American passports strictly co-operating with representatives of the Jewish organizations in Switzerland . The blank passports were bought between May 1940 and Autumn 1943 from
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3104-583: The Henryków monastery, noted that "Hoc est in polonico" ("This is in Polish"). The earliest treatise on Polish orthography was written by Jakub Parkosz [ pl ] around 1470. The first printed book in Polish appeared in either 1508 or 1513, while the oldest Polish newspaper was established in 1661. Starting in the 1520s, large numbers of books in the Polish language were published, contributing to increased homogeneity of grammar and orthography. The writing system achieved its overall form in
3201-601: The Holocaust by providing them with illegal Latin American , mostly Paraguayan passports. Aleksander Wacław Ładoś was born in Lwów, Austro-Hungary (now Lviv , Ukraine ). He was the younger son of Jan Ładoś, a postal clerk, and Albina née Kalous. Ładoś graduated from IV Classical Gymnasium in Lwów. In 1913 he joined the Polish People's Party "Piast" getting to know its leaders Wincenty Witos and Jan Dąbski . After
3298-680: The Honorary Consul of Poland in Zürich, together with journalists Zbigniew Parafianowicz and Michał Potocki described the scheme, recognizing the contribution of all group members to the survival of passport holders. The matter of Latin American Passports was the subject of a poem by Władysław Szlengel , a Polish-Jewish poet, an author of the poem "Passports", written in the Warsaw Ghetto . A number of documents related to
3395-486: The Nations to Konstanty Rokicki and offered "appreciation" to Aleksander Ładoś and Stefan Ryniewicz arguing that Rokicki headed the Ładoś Group. The document erroneously called Ładoś and Ryniewicz "consuls". The decision sparked outrage and frustration among the family members of the two other late Polish diplomats, and among survivors. Thirty one of them signed an open letter to Yad Vashem. Rokicki's cousin refused to accept
3492-634: The Polish Government in Exile, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces. After the German invasion of Poland, Ładoś headed to Romania to join the Polish Government in Exile as a minister without portfolio between 3 October and 7 December 1939. Between 24 May 1940 and July 1945 he was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Poland to Switzerland . Shortly after his nomination, Switzerland became fully encircled by
3589-590: The Polish Government in exile to help obtain official recognition of the passports by Paraguay – the fact that finally happened in February 1944. The Polish Legation under Ładoś also enabled the Sternbuchs, Montreux -based Jewish family to use Polish cables and send notes to the members of the New York Jewish diaspora to inform them about on-going Holocaust . In July 1945 Ładoś officially supported
3686-754: The Polish Legation in Bern, a representative of the RELICO Assistance Committee for the Jewish Victims of the War established by the World Jewish Congress and a representative of Agudat Israel . Five out of six members had Polish citizenship, while half of them were Jewish. The members of the Ładoś Group were: The Ładoś Group had a semi-informal structure and connections between its members were asymmetrical. It
3783-664: The Second Polish Republic. After the war, Ładoś became head of the Central European Department at the MFA and 9 October 1923 he was nominated minister plenipotentiary to Latvia . Political enemy of Józef Piłsudski , Ładoś lost his post after the coup d’état in May 1926 but quickly was nominated Consul General of Poland to Munich . Shortly after Józef Beck became vice-minister of foreign affairs, Ładoś
3880-646: The Silberschein archives in Yad Vashem suggest that at least three series of these documents had been produced, tallying altogether to least 1056 pieces. In many cases there are more than one or two people mentioned in the passports. It may be easily assessed that at least 2,100 people were beneficiaries of these documents. Each passport cost between 500 and 2,000 Swiss francs . The money was transferred to Rudolf Hügli by Polish diplomats – Rokicki, Kühl and Ryniewicz – and brought him enormous income. By comparison,
3977-671: The Silesian language was recognized by ISO , and was attributed an ISO code of szl. Some additional characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include: Polish linguistics has been characterized by a strong strive towards promoting prescriptive ideas of language intervention and usage uniformity, along with normatively-oriented notions of language "correctness" (unusual by Western standards). Polish has six oral vowels (seven oral vowels in written form), which are all monophthongs , and two nasal vowels . The oral vowels are / i / (spelled i ), / ɨ / (spelled y and also transcribed as /ɘ/ or /ɪ/), / ɛ / (spelled e ), /
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4074-753: The action about 10,000 people were saved from being sent to German extermination camps. According to him bearers of the Latin American passports were placed in internment camps in Tittmoning , Liebenau and Bölsenberg in Germany and in the Vittel camp in France . In March 1944, the Germans liquidated the latter, murdering from 200 to 300 prisoners, but those staying in other places were mostly spared. One of
4171-485: The cases mentioned above, the letter i if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents / j / , yet a palatalization of the previous consonant is always assumed. The reverse case, where the consonant remains unpalatalized but is followed by a palatalized consonant, is written by using j instead of i : for example, zjeść , "to eat up". The letters ą and ę , when followed by plosives and affricates, represent an oral vowel followed by
4268-567: The coalition Government in Poland and resigned as an envoy. Instead of coming back to Poland, he decided to stay in Switzerland, where he acted as a special envoy of the legal opposition PSL -party and its leader Stanisław Mikołajczyk . By Autumn 1946 he moved to Clamart near Paris . He came back to Poland in July 1960 being already seriously ill. Ładoś died in Warsaw , 29 December 1963, and
4365-555: The consent of his consul – Arturo Castellanos, handed him completed passports and citizenship certificates. The Polish legation was probably informed about the number of issued passports and about contacts between Silberschein-Mantello, but there is no evidence that it participated in the production of documents. Arturo Castellanos was declared in 2010 by Yad Vashem the Righteous Among the Nations . In case of passports of Honduras Silberschein contacted directly with Anton Bauer,
4462-713: The corresponding sentence in modern Polish: Daj, niech ja pomielę, a ty odpoczywaj or Pozwól, że ja będę mełł, a ty odpocznij ; and in English: Come, let me grind, and you take a rest ), written around 1280. The book is exhibited in the Archdiocesal Museum in Wrocław, and as of 2015 has been added to UNESCO 's " Memory of the World " list. The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of
4559-471: The delegate for the 21 Zionist Congress, came to Geneva from Lviv shortly before the outbreak of the war. Chaim Yisroel Eiss had been staying in Switzerland since the beginning of the 20th century and had a store in Zürich . Both representatives of Jewish organizations did not know each other before the war and were politically very distant. According to Juliusz Kühl , an idea of producing false passports
4656-400: The description of the rescue action in the third, unfinished volume of memories, but he died without having written the story. Diplomats from the Ładoś Group – Ładoś, Rokicki, Kühl and Ryniewicz – were named in the letter of thanks from Agudat Israel from January 1945. In 2015 Agnieszka Haska published an article about saving Jews by the Polish diplomats in Bern. In August 2017 Markus Blechner,
4753-479: The disappearance of yers . Polish can have word-initial and word-medial clusters of up to four consonants, whereas word-final clusters can have up to five consonants. Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as bezwzględny [bɛzˈvzɡlɛndnɨ] ('absolute' or 'heartless', 'ruthless'), źdźbło [ˈʑd͡ʑbwɔ] ('blade of grass'), wstrząs [ˈfstʂɔw̃s] ('shock'), and krnąbrność [ˈkrnɔmbrnɔɕt͡ɕ] ('disobedience'). A popular Polish tongue-twister (from
4850-430: The distinction between regular penultimate and exceptional antepenultimate stress. Another class of exceptions is verbs with the conditional endings -by, -bym, -byśmy , etc. These endings are not counted in determining the position of the stress; for example, zro biłbym ('I would do') is stressed on the first syllable, and zro bi libyśmy ('we would do') on the second. According to prescriptive authorities ,
4947-564: The documents from Silberschein's archive estimates that shortly before the liberation of Bergen-Belsen sub-camp there were over 1,100 holders of passports. Silberschein also wrote that he had met many of them met during his visit to Poland in May 1946. In December 2019 list of names of 3262 holders of passports issued by Ładoś Group was presented at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. It is estimated though that from 5000 to 7000 names of
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#17327910604175044-531: The eastern parts of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth wrote Polish in the Arabic alphabet. The Cyrillic script is used to a certain extent today by Polish speakers in Western Belarus , especially for religious texts. The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the kreska (graphically similar to the acute accent ) over the letters ć, ń, ó, ś, ź and through the letter in ł ;
5141-420: The end of words (where devoicing occurs) and in certain consonant clusters (where assimilation occurs). For details, see Voicing and devoicing in the article on Polish phonology. Most Polish words are paroxytones (that is, the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable of a polysyllabic word), although there are exceptions. Polish permits complex consonant clusters, which historically often arose from
5238-476: The entire country. Polish has traditionally been described as consisting of three to five main regional dialects: Silesian and Kashubian , spoken in Upper Silesia and Pomerania respectively, are thought of as either Polish dialects or distinct languages , depending on the criteria used. Kashubian contains a number of features not found elsewhere in Poland, e.g. nine distinct oral vowels (vs.
5335-500: The entire property of the Polish State abroad , including the network of its diplomatic missions. After the German invasion of France the government moved to London , from where it continued to fight the Germans. In the continental part of Western Europe, the Polish government-in-exile was represented by the legations in Switzerland , Portugal , Spain and Sweden . Other countries either came under German occupation or, under
5432-600: The family members of the two other late Polish diplomats, and among survivors. Thirty one of them signed an open letter to Yad Vashem. Rokicki's cousin refused to accept the medal until two other Polish diplomats, Rokicki's superior are recognized as Righteous Among The Nations, too. Polish Ambassador to Switzerland Jakub Kumoch who contributed to the discovery of Rokicki also refuted the Yad Vashem's interpretation stating that Rokicki worked under Ładoś and Ryniewicz. Eldad Beck of Israel Hayom suggested that this decision
5529-467: The following table. The following digraphs and trigraphs are used: Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds (as shown in the tables); this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters, due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above. Occasionally also voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds in clusters. The spelling rule for
5626-538: The former Honorary Consul of Honduras , who stole the seal and issued the documents illegally at his office in Bern . The recipient of Silberschein's letters was Bauer's daughter – Isabella. In one case, however, one can see traces of obtaining passports through Rokicki. On May 27, 1943, Silberschein asked him to organize a series of passports for the next day and at least two Honduran passports were issued shortly thereafter. In January 1944 Silberschein reported that thanks to
5723-627: The honorary consul of Paraguay Rudolf Hüggli and filled out by Ładoś’ sub-ordinates, consul Konstanty Rokicki and sometimes also by a Polish-Jewish diplomat Juliusz Kühl . Ładoś himself intervened directly with the Swiss Federal Counselor Marcel Pilet-Golaz to turn a blind eye to the illegal procedure. Other people included in the clandestine Ładoś Group included Ładoś’ deputy counsellor Stefan J. Ryniewicz and Jews Chaim Eiss and Abraham Silberschein , members of Jewish organizations whose main task
5820-456: The invasion and served briefly as a member of Sikorski's government. When he took up the post in Bern, the other three diplomats – already worked there: Ryniewicz from 1938, and Kühl and Rokicki from 1939. Rokicki and Ryniewicz knew each other from their previous post in Riga (1934–36) and were probably close friends. Only in Bern they met Kühl and Ładoś. Abraham Silberschein , who was supposed to be
5917-548: The language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English , 0.25% of the US population, and 6% of the Polish-American population. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census (over 50%) were found in three states: Illinois (185,749), New York (111,740), and New Jersey (74,663). Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services (which has
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#17327910604176014-439: The letter y . The predominant stress pattern in Polish is penultimate stress – in a word of more than one syllable, the next-to-last syllable is stressed. Alternating preceding syllables carry secondary stress, e.g. in a four-syllable word, where the primary stress is on the third syllable, there will be secondary stress on the first. Each vowel represents one syllable, although the letter i normally does not represent
6111-537: The letters of the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet , while removing three (x, q, v). Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35-letter alphabet. The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and 9 written vowels , including two nasal vowels ( ę , ą ) defined by a reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek . Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases . It has fixed penultimate stress and an abundance of palatal consonants . Contemporary Polish developed in
6208-503: The mass murder of European Jews was decided. From that moment, passports of Latin American countries protected from deportation to Nazi Germany Extermination camp , as their holders were sent to internment camps in Germany and occupied France . Initially, the operation was carried out chaotically, which increased the possibility of setback. This was the reason why the Legation reached out to Abraham Silberschein in 1942. Investigated by
6305-460: The matter a resemblance of conspiracy. From this correspondence, it appears that the Polish Legation demanded full information on the action. Ryniewicz also took successful intervention to save Barreto and cover up the case and inspired similar action by the Polish Legation in Lima . In 1943, Silberschein established contact with a Jewish employee of the General Consulate of El Salvador in Geneva, George Mandel-Mantello . Mantello – most probably with
6402-406: The medal until two other Polish diplomats, Rokicki's superior are recognized as Righteous Among The Nations, too. Polish Ambassador to Switzerland Jakub Kumoch who contributed to the discovery of Rokicki also refuted the Yad Vashem's interpretation stating that Rokicki worked under Ładoś and Ryniewicz. Eldad Beck of Israel Hayom suggested that this decision was politically inspired and related to
6499-431: The middle aged and young speak vernaculars close to standard Polish, while the traditional dialects are preserved among older people in rural areas. First-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty recognizing the regional and social differences. The modern standard dialect , often termed as "correct Polish", is spoken or at least understood throughout
6596-460: The most widely spoken variant of Polish across the country, and most dialects stopped being the form of Polish spoken in villages. Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their first language . Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in areas which were once administered or occupied by Poland, notably in neighboring Lithuania , Belarus , and Ukraine . Polish
6693-453: The name Tarzan . Aleksander %C5%81ado%C5%9B Aleksander Wacław Ładoś [alɛ'ksandɛr 'wadoɕ] (27 December 1891 – 29 December 1963) was a Polish politician and diplomat , who 1940–45 headed the Legation of Poland to Switzerland . Ładoś was a member and de facto leader of the Ładoś Group , also known as Bernese Group, a secret action by the Polish diplomats and Jewish organizations who helped save several hundred Jews from
6790-415: The nobles in Poland–Lithuania in the 15th century. The history of Polish as a language of state governance begins in the 16th century in the Kingdom of Poland . Over the later centuries, Polish served as the official language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , Congress Poland , the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria , and as the administrative language in the Russian Empire 's Western Krai . The growth of
6887-459: The official language of Poland, Polish is also spoken as a second language in eastern Germany , northern Czech Republic and Slovakia , western parts of Belarus and Ukraine as well as in southeast Lithuania and Latvia . Because of the emigration from Poland during different time periods, most notably after World War II , millions of Polish speakers can also be found in countries such as Canada , Argentina , Brazil , Israel , Australia ,
6984-673: The others being Czech orthography and Croatian orthography , the last of these being a 19th-century invention trying to make a compromise between the first two. Kashubian uses a Polish-based system, Slovak uses a Czech-based system, and Slovene follows the Croatian one; the Sorbian languages blend the Polish and the Czech ones. Historically, Poland's once diverse and multi-ethnic population utilized many forms of scripture to write Polish. For instance, Lipka Tatars and Muslims inhabiting
7081-719: The outbreak of the World War I he joined the Polish Eastern Legion . Exiled by the Austro-Hungarian authorities, Ładoś escaped to Switzerland and continued his interrupted studies in Lausanne being politically active in the Polish diaspora at the same time. Ładoś came back to newly independent Poland in spring 1919 to join the Polish diplomatic service. Until spring 1920 he served as plebiscite delegate at Cieszyn Silesia , Spiš and Orava . Finally,
7178-401: The palatal sounds / ɕ / , / ʑ / , / tɕ / , / dʑ / and / ɲ / is as follows: before the vowel i the plain letters s, z, c, dz, n are used; before other vowels the combinations si, zi, ci, dzi, ni are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms ś, ź, ć, dź, ń are used. For example, the s in siwy ("grey-haired"), the si in siarka ("sulfur") and
7275-547: The passports' bearers remains unknown. The research has been carried out by team led by Jakub Kumoch in Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution , Yad Vashem , and Archives of New Proceedings in Warsaw . The majority of studies gives the credit of saving Jews to single members of the group. This is due to the fact that the group was acting in conspiracy and due to the lack of holistic memories written by any of its members. Aleksander Ładoś announced
7372-439: The police, Silberchein described it as follows: I had a meeting at the Polish Legation in Bern with Mr I secretary Ryniewicz and Mr. Rokicki, who manages the consular section. Both gentlemen drew my attention to the fact that some people in Switzerland deal with providing passports of Latin American countries of for Poles in countries occupied by Germany. These passports enable their holders to improve their situation. We were having
7469-492: The pressure of the Germans, closed Polish diplomatic missions. In Bern , Switzerland, the Legation was located at Elfenstrasse in the diplomatic district of Kirchenfeld. Additionally, since 1940 another building housing a Consular Section, at Thunstrasse, was rented. Since April 1940, the Legation was headed by Aleksander Ładoś , a pre-war envoy to Latvia (1923–26) and a consul general in Munich (1927–31). Ładoś left Poland after
7566-520: The previously Polish-ruled territories in the east that were annexed by the USSR , resulting in the present-day Polish-speaking communities in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, although many Poles were expelled from those areas to areas within Poland's new borders. To the east of Poland, the most significant Polish minority lives in a long strip along either side of the Lithuania - Belarus border. Meanwhile,
7663-540: The same applies to the first and second person plural past tense endings -śmy, -ście , although this rule is often ignored in colloquial speech (so zro bi liśmy 'we did' should be prescriptively stressed on the second syllable, although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third as zrobi li śmy ). These irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable clitics rather than true verbal inflections: for example, instead of ko go zoba czy liście? ('whom did you see?') it
7760-557: The same time, the Polish government refused to surrender and on September 17, 1939 crossed the border with Romania , where was interned. In accordance with the constitution of 1935, President Ignacy Mościcki appointed Władysław Raczkiewicz as his successor. Also, a new Polish government-in-exile was formed in Paris and began to rebuild the armed forces in France . The government, headed now by general Władysław Sikorski , took control of
7857-410: The series of affricate and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that took place in Polish. The full set of consonants, together with their most common spellings, can be presented as follows (although other phonological analyses exist): Neutralization occurs between voiced – voiceless consonant pairs in certain environments, at
7954-506: The six of standard Polish) and (in the northern dialects) phonemic word stress, an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages . However, it was described by some linguists as lacking most of the linguistic and social determinants of language-hood. Many linguistic sources categorize Silesian as a regional language separate from Polish, while some consider Silesian to be
8051-494: The stress normally becomes regular. For example, uniwersytet ( /uɲiˈvɛrsɨtɛt/ , 'university') has irregular stress on the third (or antepenultimate) syllable, but the genitive uniwersytetu ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛtu/ ) and derived adjective uniwersytecki ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛt͡skʲi/ ) have regular stress on the penultimate syllables. Loanwords generally become nativized to have penultimate stress. In psycholinguistic experiments, speakers of Polish have been demonstrated to be sensitive to
8148-535: The then monthly salary of Aleksander Ładoś equaled to 1,800 francs, and this of Juliusz Kühl – to 350 francs. In 1943 Silberschein established contact with the consul of Peru in Geneva , José Barreto. Baretto handed to Silberschein 28 passports for 10–12,000 francs. The General Consul of Peru, who was informed about this maneuver, dismissed Barreto. In this case, an argument erupted between Silberschein and Ryniewicz, who accused former of acting on his own hand and giving
8245-511: The traces of handwriting of Konstanty Rokicki , but there are also several passports filled with a different character. The most probable version is that they are filled either by Juliusz Kühl or Stefan Ryniewicz , himself an experienced consul. Passports were issued for Jewish citizens of Poland , the Netherlands , Slovakia and Hungary as well as for Jews deprived of their Germany citizenship. The ordinal numbers of passports found in
8342-418: The vast majority of Paraguay passports were issued between 18 and 30 December 1942 and none of them was filled in 1943. However, the correspondence between Silberschein and Rokicki available in the archives of Yad Vashem indicates that these passports were backdated (there is an evidence that several passports of 30 December 1942 were issued in the autumn of 1943). The vast majority of Paraguay's passports has
8439-745: The voting aimed to regulate the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia was never held and a final line was set up at the Spa Conference in Belgium. Since April 1920 Ładoś worked in the headquarters of the Polish MFA in Warsaw and shortly became head of its Press Department. In 1920–1921, Ładoś served as secretary of the Polish delegation to the peace talks with the Soviet Russia in Minsk and Riga which decided about future borders of
8536-563: The vowel i is changed to y , e.g. Syria , Sybir , synchronizacja , Syrakuzy . The following table shows the correspondence between the sounds and spelling: Digraphs and trigraphs are used: Similar principles apply to / kʲ / , / ɡʲ / , / xʲ / and /lʲ/ , except that these can only occur before vowels, so the spellings are k, g, (c)h, l before i , and ki, gi, (c)hi, li otherwise. Most Polish speakers, however, do not consider palatalization of k, g, (c)h or l as creating new sounds. Except in
8633-443: The word, the phoneme / x / can be spelt h or ch , the phoneme / ʐ / can be spelt ż or rz , and / u / can be spelt u or ó . In several cases it determines the meaning, for example: może ("maybe") and morze ("sea"). In occasional words, letters that normally form a digraph are pronounced separately. For example, rz represents /rz/ , not / ʐ / , in words like zamarzać ("freeze") and in
8730-632: The worsening of Israel-Poland relations due to the controversy over the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance . Polish language Polish ( endonym : język polski , [ˈjɛ̃zɘk ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘzna] or simply polski , [ˈpɔlskʲi] ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group within
8827-734: The Ładoś Group were acquired by the Polish Ministry of Culture , with the assistance of Honorary Consul Markus Blechner, from a private collector in Israel in 2018. Named the Eiss Archive , they were displayed in the Polish embassy in Switzerland in January 2019, and later were transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland. In April 2019 the Yad Vashem granted the title of Righteous Among
8924-441: Was Konstanty Rokicki who was most involved in acquiring blank passports and filling them out; Abraham Silberschein and Chaim Yisroel Eiss and Alfred Schwarzbaum (a Jewish rescue activist refugee from Bedzin ) dealt with smuggling of passports, photos and personal data between Bern and German-occupied Europe , and provided a significant part of the financing of the operation. The role of Aleksander Ładoś and Stefan Ryniewicz
9021-427: Was buried at Powązki Cemetery . He left three tomes of unpublished and unfinished memoirs. In April 2019 the Yad Vashem granted the title of Righteous Among the Nations to Konstanty Rokicki and offered "appreciation" to Aleksander Ładoś and Stefan Ryniewicz arguing that Rokicki headed the Ładoś Group. The document erroneously called Ładoś and Ryniewicz "consuls". The decision sparked outrage and frustration among
9118-578: Was dismissed and discharged from the service. Between 1931 and 1939, he worked as editor and columnist, writing for various opposition newspapers. He became a vocal critic of Józef Beck , who in the meantime replaced August Zaleski as foreign minister. Ładoś believed Poland should seek rapprochement with the Soviet Union as a possible ally against Nazi Germany and advocated closer cooperation with Czechoslovakia . Politically close to pro-democratic and pro-French Front Morges, he befriended General Władysław Sikorski, who would later become Prime Minister of
9215-460: Was invented at the eve of 1940 and had no connection with the Holocaust . Several dozen of Paraguayan documents were produced with a view of enabling influential Jews from the areas occupied by the Soviet Union an escape through Japan . The legation identified an honorary consul of Paraguay , a Bernese notary Rudolf Hügli, who was ready to sell blank passports and bought about 30 of them. It
9312-455: Was to ensure a diplomatic cover-up among the Bernese diplomatic corps and prevent Swiss authorities from breaking up the operation. Both Ładoś and Ryniewicz intervened in this case in 1943, and exchanged arguments with Swiss foreign minister Marcel Pilet-Golaz and the police chief Heinrich Rothmund. Juliusz Kühl , who at the outbreak of the war was a 26-year-old graduate of doctoral studies at
9409-472: Was to smuggle lists of beneficiaries and copies of illegally-obtained passports between Bern and German-occupied Poland. Bearers of such passports were not sent to the Nazi death camps but instead interred in detention camps in Vittel , France or Bergen-Belsen , Germany. According to Zbigniew Parafianowicz and Michał Potocki at least 400 of them survived the war. Ładoś also successfully urged in January 1944
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