Peter Sawicki and Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Percy HatfieldHistory student Peter Sawicki and Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Percy Hatfield with the displays exhibited this summer at the Ontario Legislative Assembly in Toronto.

Grad student’s research part of history exhibition travelling to Ottawa

An exhibition celebrating Polish-Canadian history will be displayed on Parliament Hill tomorrow — Thursday, November 2 — and UWindsor history student Peter Sawicki will be on hand.

The exhibition celebrates the historical bonds of friendship between Poland and Canada, including military cooperation and safekeeping of national treasures during the First and Second World Wars, and the exchange of art, science, and culture between the two nations.

While the main organizers are the Polish-Canadian Business and Professional Association of Windsor in conjunction with a team from the Leddy Library, Sawicki contributed some singular local research on the Polish Army recruitment centre in Windsor during the Second World War.

“My master’s thesis has to do with the Polish Army recruitment centre in Windsor and while asking around the local Polish community for information and sources pertaining to it, I was approached by Jerry Barycki who was the head of the project,” Sawicki says. “He had wanted to include the recruitment station as part of the larger exhibit and I gladly agreed to help.”

Working on the project helped Sawicki to connect with members of the local community who offered him research assistance and materials that resulted the thesis he hopes to defend next semester.

“The people I have met and networked with have infected me with the desire to continue to write more on the topic of Polish-Canadian and Polish-American history,” he says. “I hope to continue researching and writing on these rarely-explored topics in my academic career.”

Sawicki will attend the Ottawa exhibition along with the Polish ambassador to Canada, members of Parliament, and delegates from national Polish organizations.