Patriotic education is to be a program for schools, not a new subject – emphasized the leader of PSL Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, presenting the assumptions of the draft law in this matter. He informed that the PSL also wants to establish the Wincenty Witos Institute, which will take care of his memory.
The draft laws prepared by PSL, both on patriotic education and on the establishment of the Institute, were submitted to the Sejm.
On Polish Armed Forces Day, the Minister of National Defense laid a wreath in front of the Wincenty Witos monument in Warsaw. He was accompanied by other PSL politicians, including Deputy Speaker of the Sejm Piotr Zgorzelski and Minister of Development Krzysztof Paszyk.
In accordance with earlier announcements, Kosiniak-Kamysz presented the assumptions of the draft law on patriotic education in front of the Witos monument. He noted that the draft “is not against anyone”, but it results from the fact that “PSL has the right to emphasize what is in its soul”.
As he said, according to the project, patriotic education “is not to be a new subject in school, because patriotic education cannot be limited to one subject”. “It is to be a program for the school, the creation of the National Education Commission, which will accept this program. It is to be a program in which patriotic education will be included in various elements” – he explained.
“Everyone has the right to remember Witos and honor him, but he must never be used in a particularistic way, and such attempts have been made. The Witos Institute is to take care of his memory, of his political thought – and this thought was unifying, patriotic, this thought was Polish. And the Polish issue has always been in the first place,” said the deputy prime minister.
He explained that the program is to include visiting places important to Polish history, including regional ones. “It is visiting these places, these are heroes, authors, there is a place for Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska, Henryk Sienkiewicz and Władysław Reymont. No one should be excluded. For Olga Tokarczuk, and for Adam Mickiewicz’s “Dziady”. (…) This is what this act is about,” he listed.
The PSL president stressed that he was counting on good cooperation in parliament. “This is not evasion, omitting any of the ministries, but a desire to emphasize what is very important to us, the PSL members,” he noted.
The PSL leader also announced that a bill had been submitted to the Sejm to establish the Wincenty Witos Institute “to commemorate the tradition not only of the Battle of Warsaw, but also of the entire role of the Prime Minister of our freedom in regaining and strengthening independence.”
“Everyone has the right to remember Witos and honor him, but he must never be used in a particularistic way, and such attempts have been made. The Witos Institute is to take care of his memory, of his political thought – and this thought was unifying, patriotic, this thought was Polish. And the Polish issue has always been in the first place,” said the deputy prime minister.
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Kosiniak-Kamysz recalled that last year, among others, thanks to the cassation appeal filed by the then Ombudsman Adam Bodnar in 2020, the Supreme Court acquitted Wincenty Witos and other former leaders of the PSL and PPS, who, as an opposition to the Sanation authorities, were found guilty in a political trial in 1932 of attempting to overthrow the government by force. The PSL had been seeking the acquittal of Witos and other leaders for years.
As Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Thursday, last year “after ninety years the Supreme Court wiped out the disgrace of the Brest court”. “I kept my promise, we kept our promise – that Witos will not be tainted with a cruel, shameful verdict that made a hero of our freedom a criminal, a criminal against the homeland. It was untrue, an open lie and deceit, it was a desire to use it politically” – he declared.
Wincenty Witos is one of the most important Polish politicians and fathers of Polish independence, and in the interwar period, he served as prime minister three times. A peasant by birth, he was associated with folk circles throughout his life, including the People’s Party and the Polish People’s Party. In 1930, he was arrested by the Sanation authorities and imprisoned in the Brest Fortress, where opposition politicians were imprisoned. Sentenced to 1.5 years, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia.
The Minister of National Defense also laid a wreath on Thursday under the plaque commemorating General Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army. Rozwadowski developed the counterattack plan and the concept of the Battle of Warsaw. (PAP)
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