Polonia, Come Home

Most Communist nations in Eastern Europe treat their former citizens who have emigrated to the West like lost souls at best and traitors at worst. A notable exception is Poland. The 19-month-old regime of Edward Gierek has actively encouraged friendly ties between "Polonia," as the Polish Diaspora is known, and the Polish People's Republic. That campaign is being intensified this summer as Poland faces a special tourist boom: emigres and their descendants returning to the old country as visitors.

The chief instrument of Warsaw's policy of being friendly to Poles abroad is the Society for Liaison with Polonia, which sponsors an expanding number of cultural and educational exchanges, historical celebrations, tourist attractions and retirement plans. In effect, the Polonia Society's programs are a giant, state-run public relations venture, which the Polish government uses to make its peace with the approximately 1,500,000 native-born Poles living in other countries--many of whom fled when the Communists gained power after World War II--and the millions more of Polish descent whose parents and grandparents were forced to emigrate because of poverty and turmoil.

Few of the Polonia Society's projects overtly propagandize for Communism. Instead, most are clearly intended to cash in on the good will of Polish emigres by inducing them to spend their hard currency in Poland and lobby for better Polish trade opportunities in their adopted lands.

Many of the schemes, particularly those that benefit Poland's depressed economy, are pitched toward the 12 million people of Polish extraction in the U.S. In order to help handle this summer's record number of Polish-American tourists (officials expect as many as 30,000), the Polish airline,

LOT, has put two new Soviet-built llyushin 62 jetliners on its charter service between U.S. cities and Warsaw. To attract emigres, the state tourist agency, Orbis, is building a new resort--which includes Poland's first postwar golf course--in Warka, birthplace of an American Revolutionary War hero, Casimir Pulaski.

Many Polish-American tourists make the trip simply to visit relatives; others, particularly the younger visitors, are third-or fourth-generation Americans anxious to renew contact with their ancestral home. But an increasing number of elderly emigres are returning to Poland for good, taking advantage of a government-sponsored bargain retirement program.

Resettlers Welcome. Polish-born pensioners who have spent most of their lives in the U.S. are allowed to re-establish residence in Poland without having to give up their American citizenship or even their Social Security benefits. They can take in their belongings, including cars, duty-free. Through special banks and stores dealing only in hard currency, they have access to goods and services unavailable to other Poles. Most Poles have to wait five to seven years for an apartment; "resettlers," as the emigrants-come-home are called, can buy a modern flat immediately for about $2,500. Most important, U.S. Social Security payments are exchanged for zlotys at almost twice the official rate. Because of Poland's low cost of living, a modest American pension gives a resettler an income equivalent to that of a Polish doctor or university professor.

A typical resettler is Jan Dlugosz, 54, of Cleveland, who worked as a tailor until a car accident left him disabled two years ago. "In Cleveland, my monthly $136 Social Security check barely covered the rent, not to mention living expenses and medical treatment," says Dlugosz. He now lives with his sister in Nowy Targ in southern Poland. Because of his income, her once cramped, two-room wooden cabin now sprouts an overwhelming two-story brick-and-concrete wing with central heating, running water and modern appliances. And Dlugosz is cared for by the free state medical plan.

Most emigres remain distrustful, if not antagonistic, toward Poland's Communist government; even so, Poles abroad have tended to side with Warsaw on issues involving nationalist aspirations, for example, international recognition of the Oder-Neisse Line as the country's Western border.

The ambivalent attitude of Polish-Americans toward their homeland is summed up by Aloysius Mazewski, 56, president of the Chicago-based Polish National Alliance (membership: 340,000). Mazewski is a conservative Republican who has no use for the regime of Party Boss Gierek, but he has lobbied actively in Congress for retention of Poland's most-favored-nation status. "The Polish Ambassador [to Washington] and the consul general [in Chicago] are persona non grata in our house," says Mazewski. "But we differentiate between them and the people of Poland, for whom we do whatever we can to ease the burden."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.