5 Poles Who Changed the World
Poland is one of the most powerful economic and cultural centres in Eastern Europe. It is a country that you should definitely put on your must-visit list. Poland will fascinate you with its ancient architecture and truly surprise you with summer holidays on the coast.
However, today we are going to tell you about extraordinary people born in Poland. People whose actions have become a role model and whose ideas have transformed the way humanity sees itself.
Janusz Korczak
Photo: Janusz Korczak, Source: https://3seaseurope.com
Janusz Korczak is a Polish physician, innovative teacher, journalist, writer and public figure. Korczak, whose real name was Henryk Goldschmidt, was born in Warsaw in 1878. During the Second World War, at the height of the Holocaust, Janusz taught at a Warsaw orphanage. Given the opportunity to leave the Nazi-occupied city, Janusz chose to stay with his students, many of whom were children of Jewish origin. It was during this period that Janusz Korczak wrote a work called "Life for the Sake of Children", a kind of diary about the Nazi occupation. Eventually, the children and staff of the orphanage were sent to the Nazi death camp in Treblinka, where they met their deaths.
Frédéric Chopin
Photo: Frédéric Chopin, Source: https://www.britannica.com
Fryderyk Chopin, a world-famous composer and pianist, was born in the small town of Żelazowej Woli, near the Polish capital, in 1810. In his work, he often turned to Polish folklore. Thus, the composer wrote almost 60 pieces based on the melody of the national Polish dance Mazurka. After spending half his life in Warsaw, Chopin moved to Paris. However, his thoughts always belonged to his homeland. Shortly before his death, Chopin asked that his heart be taken to Warsaw and his body buried in Poland.
Irena Sendler
Photo: Irena Sandler, Source: https://www.shalombait.org.ar
Irena Sendler is a Polish public figure and social worker who was born in 1910 in the Polish capital, Warsaw. Sandler is considered a national hero in Poland and is well known abroad. During the Second World War, when Poland was under the occupation of Nazi Germany, Irena Sandler joined the Polish Resistance Movement. Irena managed to save more than 2,500 Jewish children from execution and smuggle them out of Warsaw.
Nicolaus Copernicus
Photo: Nicolaus Copernicus, Source: https://www.britannica.com
Nicolaus Copernicus was a mathematician and astronomer born in the Polish city of Toruń in 1473. He became world famous for developing the heliocentric theory of the Solar System. It was the first realistic model of the world in which the Sun was the centre, not the Earth, as it was previously thought. There are monuments to Copernicus in almost every Polish city, and Warsaw is home to one of the most famous museums in Europe, the Copernicus Science Centre.
Robert Lewandowski
Photo: Robert Lewandowski, Source: https://therealchamps.com
Robert Lewandowski is perhaps the most famous Pole of our time. Born in 1988 in Warsaw, he is considered one of the best centre-forwards in world football. He is the captain of the Polish national football team, but for a long time he played for the German club Bayern Munich. In 2020, Lewandowski won the Fifa World Player of the Year and the UEFA Men's Player of the Year award. In 2022, Lewandowski moved to Barcelona, Spain, where he currently plays.