The Debrief

This is the last Debrief from The First News at the Polish Press Agency. As you may or may not know, TFN is set to close its doors to the public, with this podcast along with it. Before I say goodbye, some statistics! Along with this episode, we have a grand total of 197 episodes of The Debrief over a span just exceeding four years, with a total of over 17,300 downloads at the end of January 2024. And where are you all? Well, the majority of you are in Poland, but also in the USA, UK, Sweden, Germany, Canada and Australia. Plus many more… I would like to thank the team at TFN for their support, and who knows, maybe the Debrief will return in one way or another. Also my thanks to you dear listeners for tuning in over the years. Many thanks for listening and do take care of yourselves. Do usłyszenia! John Beauchamp

In this episode of The Debrief we take a look at the like and times of Jerzy Sosnkowski, brother of the illustrious general Kazimierz Sosnkowski. A new book about Sosnokowski shows how we was an accomplised architect, illustrator and artist, as well as a fiction writer and magazine editor. Yet despite this, he has remained out of public discourse, perhaps overshadowed by his brother, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski. Why is this? In this episode of The Debrief, John Beauchamp speaks to Dariusz Błaszczyk, the author of a new book on Jerzy Sosnkowski.

Thanks to the power of the internet meme, Polish has risen to the ranks of near legendary status for being obscenely difficult. But one Polish language teacher has set her sights on Instagram to make learning Polish that little bit easier. In this episode, John Beauchamp speaks to Julia Pilarska-Ciołek, the mastermind behind PlaPla Polish on Instagram and her school of Polish for foreigners.  

We talk to cultural anthropologist and activist Ewa Chomicka from the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews. How do museums stay relevant? How can participatory methods actually enrich a museum's narrative? One such project is a voluntary choir which was set up by the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which lasted for almost 10 years. What else can museums do to remain relevant and maintain social dialogue? Host John Beauchamp speaks to Ewa Chomicka for this last episode of 2023.

In this episode, we hear from the head of the Praga Museum about what it means to be from this slightly rough around the edges, yet vibrant and often overlooked district of Warsaw. John Beauchamp speaks to Katarzyna Kuzko-Zwierz about the Praga branch of the Museum of Warsaw about its new exhibition on exceptional women from the “right bank” of Warsaw. Kasia Kuzko also explains how the museum engages with local communities, providing a space for creativity and social cohesion. More details from the museum can be found here and on their Facebook page here.

In this episode of The Debrief, we take a look at digital accessibility in the social sphere, especially culture and the arts. Host John Beauchamp speaks to Maja Drabczyk, the head of the Centrum Cyfrowe, a digital foundation which advocates for better accessibility, public engagement and openness in the digital world. More information may be found here.

In the latest Debrief, we're down in Kraków meeting a very special artist who has made a name for herself in creating the most colourful and inventive ecological protests across Poland and Europe.  Join John Beauchamp as he visits Cecylia Malik at home in Kraków, a hive of activity where art and social activism collide. We speak about her ongoing major ecological happening, Sisters of the River, and how art can play a role in raising environmental awareness. In the above picture, Cecylia Malik shows the boat symbolising the Vistula and her tributaries. Below, the river skirt Cecylia mentions in the interview.

The golden era of Polish comic books started in the 1960s. Today its popularity has reached momentum with a whole array of titles being translated to foreign languages. The Comic Book Museum, the first such institution in Poland, is now taking shape in Kraków. It started operations in 2021 in a temporary space consisting of a small gallery and research room filled with books on comic art, historic comics and artefacts related to comic heroes. Its members have organised comic book exhibitions, including a major retrospective held at the National Museum in Kraków in 2018. Host John Beauchamp meets Artur Wabik, a visual artist specialising in murals and graffiti. Wabik is a comic book collector, curator and occasionally also a comic script writer. Since 2020 he has been a board member of the Comic Books Museum Foundation, whose collection includes 40,000 items related to the history of comic books in Poland. You can check out our TFN article on the museum here. Follow Comic Book Museum Facebook page to learn more on prospective exhibitions, workshops, meetings with comic artists and writers, and other events.

For this Debrief Extra we're on a journey through photographic history at an exhibition entitled “Lithuania. Two Centuries of Photography”. From old, yellowish photos from the 19th century to the brand new digital projects. From the times when Lithuania belonged to the Russian Tsarist empire to the modern independent state. We speak to Nikodem Szczygłowski while visiting the exhibition, which is on at the International Cultural Centre in Kraków until 29 October 2023. More info can be found here.

A new report published by Warsaw's Kozminski University shows that women in Polish higher education institutions are having a tough time breaking through to higher academic posts. Host John Beauchamp speaks to the author of the report, Adjunct Professor Dr Anna Górska from Department of the Human Resource Management at Kozminski University. Górska learnt about the working conditions for female researchers from Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Croatia and Romania. It emerged that from the perspective of female researchers, meritocracy at universities is virtually non-existent and women are constantly subjected to discrimination. More about Dr Anna Górska may be found here.

For this episode of The Debrief, we are in Venice for the European Cultural Heritage Summit. At the summit, John Beauchamp catches up with Agata Wąsowska-Pawlik, director of the International Cultural Centre in Kraków. With the bells ringing across Piazza San Marco in the heart of Venice, we discuss the latest edition of Herito, the ICC's quarterly magazine, as well as the role the institution plays within Europa Nostra, an umbrella organisation which connects NGOs across the continent on the protection of cultural heritage. You can also check out more on the European Heritage Hubs by checking out this episode of The Debrief, as well as this article from The First News on the Wit Stwosz altarpiece.

In this episode of The Debrief, John Beauchamp speaks to Dr Łukasz Bertram, a researcher who has just published a book on the history of Polish communists. Bertram writes that before 1989, the study of the communist movement was an area reserved for historians closely associated with the Polish United Workers' Party. Neither they nor their political overseers were interested in going too deep into that history for obvious reasons. After 1989, there has also been a debate on how far to go when looking at the histories of prominent Polish communists. But no matter which way you look at it, there's no escaping the fact that they existed and held sway over the country for decades. More about Łukasz bertram may be found here.

Justyna Kisielewicz is a Polish artist who is taking the world by storm through her novel ways of social critique. Justyna has been in the US for almost 10 years now, and was originally found by a gallery in California through her Instagram account – talk about luck! So just how do you become an internationally acclaimed artist with just a pocket full of cash and a plane ticket? Well, being friends with a lawyer helps… sometimes! Host John Beauchamp is in the studio with Justyna Kisielewicz.

In this episode of The Debrief, we get the inside details on the new Polish History Museum due to open in September 2023. The Polish History Museum is to show the country's over-1000 year history in an old Tsarist fortress, the Citadel in northern Warsaw. What was once a symbol of Russian domination – numerous Poles were executed here by the Tsarist authorities – is now set to house a museum of Poland's statehood. Host John Beauchamp is joined by Dr Michał Przeperski from the Polish History Museum. Links Polish history portal run by the Polish History Museum Polish History Museum Warsaw Citadel  

Coming up in this episode, we talk to Dr. Katarzyna Jagodzińska, an academic based in Kraków, about new ways of presenting museum collections as well as the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub. The Kraków Heritage Hub is part of Europa Nostra, a pan-European organisation devoted to the protection of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. You can find out more about the Kraków Toy Museum here. Host John Beauchamp speaks to Dr. Katarzyna Jagodzińska from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

War-time trauma and direct realism are the keys to a new retrospective of Polish painter Andrzej Wróblewski on at the National Museum in Lublin. Andrzej Wróblewski is regarded as one of the most outstanding 20th century Polish painters. He died at the age of 29 in 1957 in a mountaineering incident in the Tatras, but his legacy has prompted numerous artists to continue exploring Wróblewski's themes. The exhibition presents a cross-section of Wróblewski's work: from early abstract paintings, through the “Chauffeurs” and “Executions” cycles, to his late works, often done on paper, which are “delicate studies of everyday life, inscribed in the settling and existential mood of the thaw period”. Host John Beauchamp speaks to curator Marcin Lachowski from the National Museum in Lublin.

For this episode, it's time to put our feet up for a moment. We're continuing our trek through Olsztyn in north-eastern Poland, and I'm meeting a British expat who has been living in Poland for a fair few number of years. Trevor Hill has a background in anthropology, and when you start mixing that with theatre, well you can imagine, things get interesting… Host John Beauchamp catches up with Trevor – and his ukulele – in downtown Olsztyn. More on the Węgajty Theatre can be found here and here. More on Gardzienica can be found here.

In this edition of the podcast, we are in Poland's Mazury lake district to visit the Borussia Foundation – and we aren't talking football… While the region has been within Poland's borders since 1945, much of the area constituted East Prussia before the war, including the city of Allenstein, or what is now Olsztyn, where we are for this episode. So what does this chequered history mean for the region now? Host John Beauchamp visits the Borussia Foundation at the Mendelsohn House to talk about the region's Prussian history and heritage with Ewa Romanowska and Alicja Kulik.

In this episode of The Debrief, we meet radio historian Dr Urszula Doliwa from the University of Warmia and Mazury. The history of pirate radio in Poland is slightly different to the stories many know about the famous pirate stations of the 1960s and 70s such as Radio Caroline. Here, pirate radio was more a fight for free speech than looking for the latest music trends… Host John Beauchamp is in Olsztyn at the radio studios of the Journalism Institute at the University of Warmia and Mazury, where he meets Dr Urszula Doliwa, the author of “Pirate Waves” to talk about the emergence – and disappearance – of pirate radio stations in Poland.

Wilno, Vilnius, Vilne 1918–1948. One city – many stories is the title of an ongoing exhibition throughout the summer of 2023 on the tempestuous time of the early 20th century in what is now Lithaunia's capital. The exhibition is on at the National Museum in Kraków until September, and is curated by the museum's director Andrzej Szczerski along with Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, who joins host John Beauchamp for this episode on the line from Vilnius.

Anyone who's been to Poland and to Warsaw in particular, has probably seen the massive palm tree that sits in the middle of Rondo de Gaulle'a in the capital's downtown. The artist behind the project, Joanna Rajkowska, is now back with another urban sculpture on the newly refurbished Five Corner Square in the heart of Warsaw. The sound you can hear is that of a song thrush's heartbeat inside its egg, a blue marvel of nature. The egg has a name: it is “Hatchling. Song Thrush”. It measures a staggering 3 metres long and is over 2 metres tall as it is wide. John Beauchamp braves the summer heat and meets up with Joanna Rajkowska and architect Michał Kempiński by the sculpture in downtown Warsaw.

In this episode of The Debrief we take a look at an exhibition of Polish women's design. “Looking Through Objects. Women in Contemporary Polish Design” is on at the Nomus museum of contemporary art in Gdańsk. The exhibition presents the profiles of 16 Polish female designers working at the intersection of product design, collector's design, handicraft and art. Debrief host John Beauchamp meets one of the curators in the studio, Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka.

This is Debrief Extra, your espresso shot of cultural news from Poland and beyond! Debrief team member Jarosław Kociszewski speaks with Polish-Belarusian historian Ihar Melnikau about shared Polish-Belarusian history and a new book in the works on a sinister episode in Belarus' past. Hosted by John Beauchamp More from John and the Debrief team coming soon to your podcast feed!

Meet Dorota Kozarzewska, a bush guide and expedition organiser who has been taking Polish and international tourists on safaris for over twenty years. In 1996, she was the first Polish woman to graduate from a bush guiding school in South Africa. Runs Moremi Africa, taking guests on tailor-made safaris. Author of several photographic exhibitions, as well as the author of the book “Mama Busz” (Bush Mama) written about her work in Africa so far. Dorota lived for nine years on the tropical island of Zanzibar. She divides her time between her beloved Warsaw, mountain trails and observing animal life across Africa. Dorota Kozarzewska meets host John Beauchamp in the studio in Warsaw. More about the people mentioned during the podcast. Richard Leakey Dian Fossey Roots & Shoots Dorota's TEDx talk on Elephant Matriarchs

A new book recently published in Poland explores the living memory of Polish CBOWs, or ‘Children Born of War'. Debrief host John Beauchamp meets Dr Jakub Gałęziowski to talk about his book ‘Understated Biographies' which was written thanks to research on the topic of Polish children who were born as a direct result of wartime activity: whether by rape or consensus. With Polish lands sometimes exchanging hands multiple times between occupying forces during World War II, CBOW stories are often related to either German or Soviet soldiers. But there are some surprises too… “This part of history is not very well known in World War II studies,” Dr Gałęziowski says, adding that it is time that Polish CBOW narratives – often misunderstood or simply unknown – complete European research undertaken in Northern and Western Europe.

What happens when you have a caring dad who works too much but who still wants to spend as much time with his kids as possible? Well, apart from a lack of sleep and a little bit of stress, he can always turn his attention to storytelling… We've all been there. The kids demand: “tell me a story!” and your mind goes blank. Not for our guest this week though. Budding kids' author Wojciech Bablok is in the studio with John Beauchamp for this Children's Day episode of The Debrief.

A lot of the old and grand buildings you can still see in Warsaw nowadays were built thanks to the ingenuity and skill of a certain Marconi… While the surname may ring a bell, we're not talking about telephones, but about Enrico Marconi, known in Poland as Henryk, who was a prolific architect and the mastermind behind dozens of buildings built in Congress Poland. Host John Beauchamp speaks to Jakub Frejtag from Warsaw University about the Marconi effect on Polish architecture and how it came to be that an Italian found himself in Poland back in the 19th century. A lot of the old and grand buildings you can still see in Warsaw nowadays were built thanks to the ingenuity and skill of Henryk Marconi. He built hotels, train stations, hospitals, grand palaces for the rich and famous, numerous churches, and even a synagogue. While a lot of the buildings Enrico Marconi constructed didn't survive the war, some did, and can still be admired today – even if not in their original form.

The 3 May Constitution of 1791 is known as being Europe's first modern constitution, following on from the United States two years before. At the time, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a multi-ethnic state, comprising Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Jews, Germans, Armenians and other ethnicities. The document was revolutionary in that it established a new voting system across the country, increased the rights of the peasantry, upkept religious tolerance and abolished the liberum veto, where one vote against could bring down any legislation being debated in the Sejm. While the effects of the new system were only in effect for under two years until the Grodno Sejm in 1793 (and ahead of the Kościuszko Uprising and the Second Partition), it is seen as progressive, a reflection of the Enlightenment ideals of the time. John Beauchamp is in Krasnogruda on the Polish-Lithuanian border where he meets Krzysztof Czyżewski from the Borderland Foundation to talk about the 3 May Constitution and how patriotism can be given new wind thanks to a look back to the ideals of the Commonwealth: hospitality and openness. The name of the high-school student mentioned by Krzysztof in the interview is Patryk Jankowski, who comes from a mixed-heritage Polish-Lithuanian family and who recently won the seventh edition of the Jagiellonian University's Polish Department annual essay competition for a paper on modern-day patriotism.  

A little bit of a folk twist coming up in this episode of The Debrief as we're at the Mazurkas of The World Festival in Warsaw. The festival is a folk celebration which lasts for four days at the end of April, with concerts, dances, singing and instrument workshops, children's activities, even an all-night folk dance party. One of the highlights of the Mazurkas of The World Festival is the folk instrument fair. In this episode, host John Beauchamp meets with two folk instrument makers – Jakub Podskarbi and Edward Reszke – and also with one of the festival's organisers and folk musician Piotr Piszczatowski. We also listen in on one of the groups taking part in the festival, the Wesołe Mazurki children's folk group from Warsaw's Praga district.

This week marked 80 years since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out. The fight, the largest act of armed resistance by Jews in World War II, started 19 April 1943 and lasted just under a month until 16 May. Three heads of state: Polish president Andrzej Duda, Israeli president Isaac Herzog and German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier were in Warsaw for the occasion. Steinmeier is the first-ever German head of state to be present at the commemoration in Warsaw. “I stand before you today and ask for your forgiveness for the crimes committed by Germans here,” Steinmeier said during his speech at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw's Muranów district. Here on The Debrief we have looked at some of the events taking place this year. On the line John Beauchamp speaks to curator from the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Zuzanna Schnepf-Kołacz, to discuss how different narratives make up the story of the Ghetto Uprising.

The Kraków district of Kazimierz is home to the city's Jewish history and heritage. Before World War II, there were almost 60,000 Jews living in Kraków, around one quarter of the city's total population. After the Holocaust, the history of Kraków's Jews all but comes to a standstill, although just before the fall of communism in 1989, a Jewish cultural festival starts to take place in Kazimierz. Fast forward to 2008, and the UK's Prince Charles – now King Charles III – arrives in Kraków to take part in the opening of the Jewish Community Centre. Now, the Jewish community in Kraków continues to grow, and a deeper understanding of Kraków's Jewish heritage has also called for an updated history of the life and times of Kraków's Jews. Debrief host John Beauchamp sits down with Edyta Gawron and Michał Galas from the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University, the authors and editors of ‘Not only Kroke', a chronicle of sorts which covers a millennium of Jewish history in Poland's southern city, the former Royal Capital.

A new exhibition on Polish artistic photography which spans most of the 20th century is on in the southern Polish city of Kraków. Host John Beauchamp goes to the Museum of Photography in Kraków, where he meets chief curator Dr. Dominik Kuryłek, to take a look at how Polish photography developed from being a documentary tool to having more artistic possibilities. Photo: Student by Edward Hartwig, ca. 1955. Image courtesy of MuFo Kraków

In this episode, host John Beauchamp is joined in the studio by Tomasz Snażyk, CEO of the Startup Poland Foundation. We hear the latest on Polish innovation and startups, on where the money is, and which direction Polish startups are currently taking… The reports mentioned in the podcast can be found at the Startup Poland website here.

At the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, one of the first cities the Russian army advanced on was Chernihiv, some 150km north of the country's capital Kyiv. The city was sieged for almost 40 days, eventually overcoming Russian forces, which had devastated the city with constant shelling. Fast forward to over a year later, and John Beauchamp is in the studio with Chernihiv resident, Dr. Volodymyr Pylypenko, one of the curators of a photo exhibition in Warsaw which documents the Russian siege back in early 2022.

Figures show a comeback of amateur – or ham radio – especially during the Pandemic and now during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. So how can amateur radio be useful when we have everything we need to communicate in the palm of our hands?  An ambassador of sorts for Polish amateur radio in the Mazovian region and beyond, Maciek “Miles” Muszalski (SQ5EBM) joins John Beauchamp (HF5B) in the studio. What can ham radio do which other modes of communication can't? And what is EmCom? All is revealed in this episode. Clubs and associations mentioned in the podcast: MASR SP5POT SP5KAB Polish Amateur Radio Union  

The Museum of Warsaw is taking a look at the rebuilding of the Polish capital after World War II. After the city was decimated by the German occupiers, all that was left was rubble and a population of under 20,000, down from 1.3 million before the war. It's this rubble – over 20 million cubic metres of it – which takes on a new meaning when we think of Warsaw's rise from the ashes… John Beauchamp is in the studio with architectural researcher Dr. Adam Przywara from the Museum of Warsaw. More information about the exhibition can be found at the museum's website here. Below: Gruz nad Warszawą (Rubble over Warsaw), artist Tymon Borowski. Image courtesy of Museum of Warsaw.  

Would you believe that Poland is one of the pioneering countries of electronic music? Back in the 1950s, Polish Radio was one of the first broadcasters in the world to set up a dedicated experimental sound studio, which hosted some outstanding composers, including Krzysztof Penderecki. It closed around 2004, but its legacy lives on. So much so, that the famous Black Room at the Experimental Studio is now to be recreated at the new Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw when it opens its new building in downtown Warsaw in 2024. Join John Beauchamp and his guests Paweł Nowożycki and Jolanta Woch from MSN Warszawa Interesting links: PRES Facebook Group Włodzimerz Kotoński Oskar Hansen Polish Radio Experimental Studio Polish Radio Experimental Studio – Podcast from Culture.pl Short newsreel (in Polish) on PRES when it first opened  

How do we know what the past sounded like, even though there wasn't any recording equipment or other such audio gadgetry back in the 19th century and beyond? How can we be sure about our perception of past sounds? Well, there might not be a single answer to these questions, but one academic, Dr Marta Michalska, is looking at what historical Warsaw might have sounded like… She joins host John Beauchamp in the studio for this episode. Interesting links: Unseen Soundwalks Marta's Instagram page where you can follow what she's up to Centre of Community Archives National Digital Archives

When you think of the southern Polish city of Kraków you generally tend to envisage the grand market square and the renaissance architecture which surrounds it. However, the city is not just all about 16th-century glam. For those more architecturally inclined, there's a new guide to Kraków's more recent developments with a book on the city's modernist gems. Host John Beauchamp is joined by Michał Wiśniewski from the Architecture Institute to explore the modernist traces in Kraków. More on Kraków and its modernist (and post-modern!) architecture can be found here.

It's been a year since Russia invaded Ukraine, driving millions from their homes and plunging the country into war. The sacrifice Ukrainians have had to make is huge as brave country continues to resist. But it's not all about fighting and warfare. The scale of human tragedy – yet also of hope – is hard to fathom. Thankfully, we can catch a glimpse of what's going on in Ukraine thanks to the work of many freelance journalists risking life and limb to bring us the latest news. Host John Beauchamp speaks to journalist and documentary maker Paweł Kwiecień about his many trips to Ukraine in 2022, what he witnessed, and what he thinks the future holds…

A group of eleven young Ukrainian women have launched an art zine in Warsaw called ‘3ina', which brings together works from across Ukraine and beyond in a magazine whose sales will support the Ukrainian cause. For this episode of The Debrief, host John Beauchamp speaks to Julia from Grupa Wolne, a Polish NGO which fights against social exclusion and which funded ‘3ina'. Also we have Polina in the studio, while Oksana joins us on the line from Kharkiv. Is it possible to create art while your country is at war? How did the ‘3ina' team come up with the idea, and how was it made possible? All that and more in this episode.

Wisława Szymborska, a Polish poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996, would have been celebrating her 100th birthday in 2023. The poet died in 2012, but her legacy continues thanks to the Szymborska Foundation. The organisation is run by the poet's former secretary, Michał Rusinek, himself a writer. In this episode of The Debrief, Michał Rusinek is in the studio with host John Beauchamp to go through what's in store for the Szymborska Year – as it is officially known. More on the Szymborska Foundation can be found here. More on the Audionomia Foundation's Szymborska Audio Competition can be found here. [PL] Michał Rusinek (L) with host John Beauchamp at the studio in Warsaw

In this episode of The Debrief, we hear about plans to make a film based on the life of the Midwife of Auschwitz, Stanisława Leszczyńska. Leszczyńska was a Polish midwife who delivered over 3,000 children while a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Now a feature film is to be made about the experience. In the studio John Beauchamp hears from Dagmara Leszczkowicz, Editor-in-Chief of TFN and who is involved with the film. We also hear about plans for the TFN this year: apart from the latest news from Poland, have you checked out our TikTok yet?

In this week's episode we are going to be hearing from two guests from the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews about a number of events taking place throughout the year. The phrase: “Don't be indifferent” was said during a speech given by Holocaust survivor Marian Turski at the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz concentration camp in 2020. The phrase forms the inspiration for this year's programme at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is commemorating 80 years since the Ghetto Uprising of 1943. This year's events “will recall the life stories of those who, against despair, loneliness, starvation, thirst and fear fought for ‘every day, every hour, every minute' of staying alive with their nearest and dearest,” underlines a statement from Polin. “[We] will also pose questions about our future.” Host John Beauchamp is joined by Zuzanna Schnepf-Kołacz, curator of the “Around Us a Sea of Fire” exhibition and Polin spokeswoman Marta Dziewulska. “Thou Shalt Not Be Indifferent. 80th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” programme [EN] A unique discovery – photographic film with images of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising [EN] Information on how to join the Daffodil campaign [PL]

It's great to be back in the studio after some unexpected time off after I came down with Covid at the end of 2022. I'm now back on my feet and we are kicking off our fourth season here at The Debrief with a slight change of style, you might have noticed our funky new jingle! Host John Beauchamp joins Sapir Librowski-Sher, a Hebrew teacher at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Originally from Tel Aviv, we hear of how she came to Poland and what it's like for her to get in touch with her Polish-Jewish roots. Jewish studies at the Jagiellonian University. The book mentioned in the episode is Conversations with an Executioner by Kazimierz Moczarski.

One of the ways we can perceive and define a city is by the way it smells. New research spotlights historical smells and – more importantly – what was done about them, in the Polish city of Lublin. Research from Dr Stephanie Weismann – originally from the University of Vienna, currently at the Institute of Polish Culture at Warsaw University – takes into account four case studies of Lublin's smells over a number of decades in the 20th century. At Warsaw University she's going one step further with a study of smells in a project called “NoseWise. An Olfactory Approach Towards Polish Cultural History”. So how does one go about recording smells? Join host John Beauchamp in this episode of The Debrief to find out.

A new online project brings the Drohobycz of Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz back to life through reimagined immersive soundscapes and narratives. Bruno Schulz was born in Drohobych, in what is now Ukraine, in 1892. He is widely regarded as one of the great Polish-language writers of the 20th century, having received a number of awards in the 1930s. His literary career was cut short by World War II. When Nazi troops moved into Drohobych, he was forced into the newly-created ghetto, and was shot dead by a Gestapo officer in 1942. Host John Beauchamp speaks to artist Mika Johnson about the project, called The Republic of Dreams, which is available here.

With the war in Ukraine entering the winter months, hope still holds out for a decisive victory. Host John Beauchamp speaks to journalist and war reporter Agnieszka Pospiszyl on her recent month-long tour of Ukraine, including the liberation of Kherson from the Russians. “It's not a question of if, it's a question of when,” Pospiszyl says of a Ukrainian success.

In this episode of The Debrief, we take a look at a virtual exhibition at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw which gives users the opportunity to dive into the world of Jewish cooking. We take a look at the history of Jewish cuisine in Poland, from the kosher cookbooks of the 19th century right up until the present day and how vegan culture – which has taken hold in Warsaw – is inextricably linked to Jewish cuisine from Tel Aviv. Host John Beauchamp speaks to Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at Polin, about the history of Jewish cuisine in Poland and beyond. You can check out the virtual exhibition as well as pick some Jewish recipes here.

An exhibition which highlights the history of the Gdańsk shipyard from its early days in the 19th century is on at the European Solidarity Centre. The famous Gdańsk shipyard is well known in Poland and abroad for being the birthplace of Solidarity, the trade union led by electrician Lech Wałęsa which ultimately took down the communist regime. However, Gdańsk has been home to a shipyard for far longer, with the Prussians setting up a base in Danzig in 1844 and turning the site into a shipyard to provide corvettes and U-boats for the German navy, including the U-20, which sank the Lusitania in 1915… Host John Beauchamp is taken on a whirlwind tour of the exhibitions with Magdalena Charkin-Jaszcza from the European Solidarity Centre. You can find out more about the ECS here and the Shipyard exhibition here.

In this edition of The Debrief, we are up in the Biebrza National Park in northern Poland. The wetlands-dominated area comprises Poland's largest national park, taking up some 600 square kilometres: that's around the size of Chicago, IL. Host John Beauchamp speaks to one of the park's ornithologists and environmental scientists, Piotr Marczakiewicz about the effects of climate change on this sensitive ecosystem.