Oral History Interview, Waclaw Szybalski (1411)

Abstract

In his 2015 interview with Piotr Puchalski (conducted in Polish), Wacław Szybalski spoke about his youth in interwar and wartime Poland, his membership in the Maritime and Colonial League of Poland, and Polish maritime affairs more broadly. Szybalski was born in 1921 in Lwów, Poland (now L'viv, Ukraine). His family and personal connections to several leaders of the League, and in the 1930s, Szybalski sailed and hiked with members of the organization, subscribed to its monthly magazine, and attended the group’s annual nation-wide event (the Days of the Sea or Dni Morza) in the port city of Gdynia. In the interview, Szybalski recalled events from his life that suggested a cosmopolitan and maritime atmosphere, as well as a colonial discourse permeating the middle and upper echelons of Polish society before World War II. Additionally, Szybalski discussed his role in the Polish anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet resistance movement during the double occupation of Poland, mentioning the drawing of plans of a German concentration camp, which were later delivered to the Roosevelt Administration in the United States via the Polish underground. Finally, Szybalski shared his perceptions of the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) and Jewish populations of interwar Poland as well as the present-day status of his hometown Lwów, now the Ukrainian L'viv. This interview was conducted for inclusion in the UW-Madison Oral History Project.