This story was featured in: Episode 39
Not much is known in the world about the history of Poland. As our interlocutor says, everyone has heard of the Holocaust, but almost no one knows about the fate of Poland during WWII, attacked by two enemies – Germans and Soviets, and the heroism of many of its people, e.g. Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain, Żegota – clandestine organization helping the Jews, the massive underground state, heroes letting themselves be imprisoned in Auschwitz to report on the massacres and trying to inform the world about the horrors inflicted by the Germans on the Polish Jewry (Witold Pilecki, Jan Karski). When a Pole makes it his/her mission to tell the world about these unknown heroes and events, that’s not that surprising, but when it is not a Pole…
Terry Tegnazian is an American who has founded a very successful independent publishing house Aquila Polonica (meaning Polish Eagle in Latin) which publishes high quality books in English, about the Polish World War II experience.
Aquila Polonica is a registered trademark in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the twenty-seven CTM countries of the E.U. The company is based in Los Angeles, California.
Every one of Aquila Polonica’s books to date has won one or more awards. They have been reviewed in major media such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic and Publishers Weekly. Five books published to date have been chosen as Selections of the History Book Club and the Military Book Club, with two additionally being chosen as a Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club.
Terry Tegnazian, a graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School, practised law in Los Angeles and became a film producer. Then, fascinated by Poland’s WWII history, she founded Aquila Polonica and became an expert on this period of Poland’s history. In 2012, she was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland by decision of the President of Poland, in recognition of her outstanding services to the Polish community and promotion of Polish culture abroad. In 2014, she received the Polonia Award from the Polish American Congress of Southern California. In early 2015 the Polish American Historical Association awarded Terry the Amicus Polanaie Award, and the Los Angeles City Council honored her with the 2015 Pioneer Women of the Year Award.