By Michael A. Szymanski
Polish Consul General Paulina Kapuścińska paid a visit to Detroit on September 9-10, 2012, where she visited the Polish Mission in Orchard Lake, the Piast Institute in Hamtramck, University of Michigan’s Copernicus Endowment and Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia
in Ann Arbor and the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills.
While in Detroit, Consul General Kapuścińska also met with Marcin Chumięcki, Director of the Polish Mission in Orchard Lake, Maria Ostafin, Director of the Copernicus Endowment at the University of Michigan and Dr. Thaddeus Radzilowski, President of the Piast Institute in Hamtramck.
The meeting at the Piast Institute was also attended by representatives of local Polonia organizations as well as by Poles and Americans of Polish descent representing the local administration. In remarks to the gathering at the Piast Institute, Dr. Radzilowski was obviously pleased to have the Polish Consul General visit Detroit and the Piast Institute so early in her tenure, and he noted that the Detroit area has, after Chicago, the second largest concentration of Poles and Polish Americans in America. Consul General Kapuścińska is a career civil servant and was previously Consul General in Los Angeles from 2007 to 2009. She was only recently appointed to her current position in Chicago on September 1, 2012 by Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslav Sikorsky. She was enthusiastic about the prospects for working with Detroit’s Polonia and discussed a wide range of subjects with those in attendance including the Polish and American economies and the promotion of international trade. Kapuścińska’s visit to Detroit is a welcome step toward enhancing
the well-being and influence of all Polonia through cooperation among its many diverse parts.
Detroit is in the consular area of the Polish Consulate General in Chicago. In its metro area, Detroit has nearly 490,000 inhabitants that have Polish roots and 9 percent of the entire population of the state of Michigan is of Polish origin.
Foto: Konrad Zieliński Vice Consul, Paulina Kapuścińska General Consul in Chicago, Dr. Thaddeus Radziłowski, President of the Piast Institute in Hamtramck, MI
