Author: myPOLcast

POLcast is an English language podcast, a colourful audio magazine delivered directly to your smartphone, computer or tablet. POLcast is created for everybody interested in Poland. If you have a Polish customer, colleague, girlfriend or grandmother - you will hear something helping you to enrich these relations. Each episode brings you interesting interviews, historical facts, trivia and more.

This story was featured in: Episode 19 MOSES McCORMICK We posted one of his YouTube videos on our Facebook Page and this is how we found him, a most amazing polyglot, currently mastering Polish. Moses McMormick is from Columbus, Ohio, and has an extensive history of formal and intensive home study of a myriad of languages. Already versed in Chinese and Japanese through private work in high school, upon arriving at the Ohio State University he majored in Chinese at the same time taking as many as five different foreign language classes per quarter. After a few weeks of study on…

Read More

This story was featured in: Episode 19 Mirosław (Mirek) Polatyński Artistic Director, CEO & Founder of ATLAS Stage Productions Canada. He holds an MFA in Acting from the National Film, TV & Theatre School in Lodz, Poland. In June 2007, he obtained an MFA in Directing from the Centre for Film and Theatre at York University in Toronto. Shortly after graduation, he started to fulfill his previous vision about bridging theatrical gaps between cultures and countries. For this purpose he founded Atlas Stage Productions Canada, and invited a group of professionals to build its foundations. He is a licensed Theatre…

Read More

In this episode you will hear: How an American from Ohio teaches himself Polish How Poles watch foreign films on TV How an actor from the Polish town of Opole became a Canadian theatre director and succeeded in building bridges between Poland and Canada Interviews: • Moses McCormick is a black American from Columbus Ohio, a polyglot, who teaches himself  Polish • Mirek Polatynski, an actor from Poland, now a Canadian theatre director, producer and translator, talks about promoting Canadian theatre in Poland and vice versa Also in this episode: • “Smacznego” – Peter and Laura Żeranski’s series on Polish food: summer…

Read More

This story was featured in: Episode 18 Martha Hall Kelly There are stories that need to be told. This is one of them – of New York socialite and philanthropist Caroline Ferriday. In 1959, during Cold War, 14 years after World War II, Caroline Ferriday managed to achieve the unthinkable: she got a group of 35 Polish women from behind the Iron Curtain to travel to the US so that they could undergo treatment for horrifying wounds which they had suffered during the war as prisoners of Hitler’s only all-female concentration camp – Ravensbrück, where doctors, including the only woman surgeon Herta…

Read More

This story was featured in: Episode 18 It’s impressive when Canadian born children of Polish parents (both or just one) speak Polish but there are some who not only know the language but are passionate about Poland and know about it as much as their peers who live there. This year the Polish Language Teachers Association of Canada organized the first ever multi-stage contest (Olympiada Wiedzy o Polsce) where elementary and high school students of Polish language schools in Canada and the US competed in their knowledge about Poland – its history, geography, culture, traditions. In the Jeopardy-style finals, the…

Read More

In this episode you will hear: About Lilac Girls and what this mysterious phrase has to do with Poland. How Canadian teenagers of Polish descent are passionate about Poland Interviews: • Martha Hall Kelly, an American writer, talks about “Lilac girls”, her book on New York philanthropist Caroline Ferriday, who helped WWII medical experiment survivors • Canadian and American born elementary and high school students compete in a contest checking their knowledge about Poland – in the Polish language! Also in this episode: • Why adults study Polish in Toronto? A student’s story • Janusz Żurakowski – a Polish pilot from the Battle…

Read More

This story was featured in: Episode 17 The story about David Bowie’s song “Warszawa” is well known and featured in many sources. To read more, see the following links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warszawa_(song)  http://culture.pl/en/article/how-david-bowie-created-warszawa http://www.openculture.com/2014/09/david-bowie-brian-enos-collaboration-on-warszawa-reimagined-in-comic-animation.html http://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kultura/1511608,1,jak-david-bowie-spacerowal-po-warszawie-i-co-z-tego-wyniklo.read  http://www.stereogum.com/1705543/watch-the-previously-untold-true-story-of-david-bowie-brian-eno-tony-visconti-recording-warszawa/video/ http://genius.com/David-bowie-warszawa-lyrics http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id= To listen to the song itself watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gy94N_mcWs David Bowie performing the song “Warszawa” from album “Low” on Dec 12, 1978 in Tokyo – the song opened his concert there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9rELaQztqk And listen to the Slask’s song “Helokanie”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPAOkWDxz7U

Read More

This story was featured in: Episode 17 Eric Bednarski Eric is a Warsaw based film director/writer. Born in Halifax, Canada, Bednarski studied history and filmmaking in North America and Europe. His documentary film work with the National Film Board of Canada has garnered him a Gemini Award and a Writers Guild of Canada Award nomination, and he was awarded the Decoration of Honour “Meritorious for Polish Culture” by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Bednarski’s films have been broadcast across the world and have been screened at international festivals, at the United Nations, the European Parliament and the State Museum of Auschwitz- Birkenau. In 2015 the…

Read More