Gallery
Former headquarters of the Warsaw branch of Democratic Clubs, at 31 Old Town Market Place.
A plaque commemorating the founding location of the Warsaw Democratic Club.
Democratic Clubs Kluby Demokratyczne | |
|---|---|
| Founded | September 1937 |
| Dissolved | 15 April 1939 |
| Succeeded by | Alliance of Democrats |
| Newspaper | Czarno na Białem (unofficially) |
| Ideology | Anti-fascism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
Democratic Clubs (Polish : Kluby Demokratyczne) was a left-wing and anti-fascist political organization in the Second Polish Republic. It was founded in September 1937 by left-wing and nonpartisan Sanation politicians, in response to the growing fascist movement in Poland. On 15 April 1939, it was reorganised into the Alliance of Democrats. Key members of the organisation included Marceli Handelsman, Mieczysław Michałowicz, Wincenty Rzymowski, and Alfred Fiderkiewicz.
Democratic Clubs were founded in September 1937 by left-wing Sanation and nonpartisan politicians. It was porposed by Mikołaj Kwaśniewski, in the opposition to right-wing faction of Sanation politicians forming the Camp of National Unity, and the growing fascist movement in Poland. [1] [2] First branch of Democratic Clubs was founded in Warsaw, with its first meeting taking place on 16 October 1937, in the tenement building at 31 Old Town Market Place. It was later followed by Kraków, Łódź, Lviv, Vilnius, Katowice, Sosnowiec, Bielsko, Poznań, Kalisz, and Gdynia. Among its most important members were Marceli Handelsman, Mieczysław Michałowicz, Wincenty Rzymowski, and Alfred Fiderkiewicz. It was unofficially associated with the weekly newspaper Czarno na Białem. [1] [3]
Its political agenda was stated in the Small Democratic Declaration (Polish: Mała deklaracja demokratyczna), ratified on 16 October 1937 in the Warsaw Democratic Club. [1] [3]
On 15 April 1939, Democratic Clubs were united and reorganised into the Alliance of Democrats political party. [1] [3]
The façade of a tenement building at 31 Old Town Market Place in Warsaw, features a plaque commemorating the formation of the Warsaw Democratic Club in 1937. [4]
Sanation was a Polish political movement that was created in the interwar period, prior to Józef Piłsudski's May 1926 Coup d'État, and came to power in the wake of that coup. In 1928 its political activists would go on to form a Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government (BBWR).
National Democracy was a Polish political movement active from the second half of the 19th century under the foreign partitions of the country until the end of the Second Polish Republic. It ceased to exist after the German–Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939.
Szymon Askenazy was a Jewish-Polish historian, educator, statesman and diplomat, founder of the Askenazy school.
Wincenty Witos was a Polish statesman, prominent member and leader of the Polish People's Party (PSL), who served three times as the Prime Minister of Poland in the 1920s.
During World War II in Poland, education often took place underground. Secretly conducted education prepared scholars and workers for the postwar reconstruction of Poland and countered German and Soviet threats to eradicate Polish culture.
The May Coup was a coup d'état carried out in Poland by Marshal Józef Piłsudski from 12 to 14 May 1926. The attack of Piłsudski's supporters on government forces resulted in an overthrow of the democratically-elected government of President Stanisław Wojciechowski and Prime Minister Wincenty Witos and caused hundreds of fatalities. A new government was installed, headed by Kazimierz Bartel. Ignacy Mościcki became president. Piłsudski remained the dominant politician in Poland until his death in 1935.
The Alliance of Democrats, also known as the Democratic Party, is a Polish centre-left party. Initially formed in 1937, the party underwent a revival in 2009, when it was joined by liberal politician Paweł Piskorski, formerly a member of the Civic Platform.
The National Party was a Polish nationalist political party formed on 7 October 1928 after the transformation of the Popular National Union.
Ghetto benches was a form of official segregation in the seating of university students, introduced in 1935 at the Lwów Polytechnic. Rectors at other higher education institutions in the Second Polish Republic had adopted this form of segregation when the practice became conditionally legalized by 1937. Under the ghetto ławkowe system, Jewish university students were required under threat of expulsion to sit in a left-hand side section of the lecture halls reserved exclusively for them. This official policy of enforced segregation was often accompanied by acts of violence directed against Jewish students by members of the ONR.
Mieczysław Jan Michałowicz was a Polish social and political activist, medical doctor of pediatrics, and professor of the Warsaw University.
Bonawentura Niemojowski was a Polish lawyer, writer and politician. He was one of the leaders of Polish National Government during the November Uprising.
The National Radical Camp was an ultranationalist and antisemitic political movement which existed in the pre-World War II Second Polish Republic, and an illegal Polish anti-communist, and nationalist political party formed on 14 April 1934 mostly by the youth radicals who left the National Party of the National Democracy movement.
Vasyl Mudry was a Polish-Ukrainian journalist and politician. He led the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, the largest Ukrainian political party in interwar Poland, and also served as speaker of the Polish parliament.
Alexander Chalmers was a Scottish-born merchant, jurist, and city mayor and councilor active in Poland. He was the mayor of Old Warsaw from 1691 to 1692, from 1694, 1696, and from 1702 to 1703, and the member of the Old Warsaw City Council from 1688 to 1690, from 1692 to 1694, and from 1697 to 1701.
Adam Franciszek Ksawery Skwarczynski was a Polish independence activist and politician, one of main ideologists of the Sanacja movement. A supporter of Józef Piłsudski and his policies, Skwarczynski also was a Freemason and a publicist.
Andrzej Świetlicki was a Polish politician, a member of the far-right National Radical Movement "Falanga". After the 1939 German invasion of Poland, in October 1939 he formed the collaborationist National Radical Organization. After a few months of collaboration with the Germans, and the takeover of power by the civil administration of the General Government, Hitler issued a ban on cooperation with political organizations in Poland. The NOR was deprived of protection and cooperation from the Nazis. In May 1940, Świetlicki was arrested and imprisoned in Pawiak. On 21 June 1940, he was executed in the Palmiry massacre.
Alfred Jan Fiderkiewicz was a Polish activist of the labor movement, socialist politician, physician, diplomat and Auschwitz survivor.
Witold Abramowicz was a politician and jurist. In 1919, he served as the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, and from 12 October 1920 to 16 January 1921, he was the chairperson of the Provisional Governing Commission, an executive government of the Republic of Central Lithuania. In 1922, he was the leader of the Democratic Party, which he represented in the Sejm of Central Lithuania from 1 February to 1 March 1922. From 11 March 1928 to 10 July 1935, he represented the Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government for Vilnius electoral district, in the Senate of Poland.