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Health & Fitness

Those Who Have Lost Freedom Value It; Note St. Adalbert Cemetery's Memorials

Because Poles lost their freedom for decades, they know the value of it; witness the memorials in Niles' St. Adalbert's Cemetery.

Even though Memorial Day 2011 is in the rear-view mirror, every day offers us an occasion to honor the men and women who gave their lives for our country.

Polish-Americans are among the most patriotic people I know, perhaps because they lost their nation in the late 18th century. They won back their independence in 1918, only to suffer terribly at the hands of the Nazis two decades later. During the Cold War Poland was a client state under the thumb of the Soviet Union.

When I was a kid, it was said that there were more Poles living in Chicago than in Warsaw. There is still a strong Polish presence in the city as well as in the suburbs. Niles of course is just north of Chicago and that's where St. Adalbert Cemetery lies. The Archdiocese of Chicago consecrated it in 1872 to serve the city's Poles and in terms of burials, it's the largest within the archdiocese.

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Pictured with this post is St. Adalbert's monument to Polish-Americans who fought in World War I.

But the best known memorial in St. Adalbert's is the Katyn monument near the entrance to the cemetery, which is also pictured. In 1940, over 20,000 Poles, many of them military officers and policemen,  were massacred by Stalin's secret police in the Katyn Forest in western Russia. Last year the wounds of the atrocity were re-opened when Polish President Lech Kaczyński, along with many leading military and political figures, were killed in a plane crash in Smolensk, Russia. They were on their way to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre.

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Poland is now a close ally of America. Which is at it should be.

Remember.  Freedom is not free.

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