Związek Młodzieży Chrześcijańskiej (Christian Young People Association), also known as the Polish YMCA, is a youth social organization, based on the international organizations that YMCA built. It encourages good conduct, charity and education, and activities based on Christian morals. People of both sexes can be members.
The American YMCA came to Poland with General Józef Haller's army during World War I. [1] The main aim was to serve soldiers and prisoners of war. After the war the YMCA continued to work with students, children and poor people. And, with the help of the American YMCA, Poles started to build their own YMCA, which was founded formally in 1923.
Before World War II, the YMCA worked in many cities in Poland. Three campsites and four buildings (in Kraków, Łódź, Warsaw and Gdynia) were built with the help of the American YMCA. The YMCA houses had rooms for residents, common rooms, gyms, and swimming pools. Sport and camping played a main role in its programme. Young people from many European countries, and from the US, participated in Polish YMCA camps. A very important part of the programme was education, development of patriotism and participation of young people. Most of the programmes for youngsters were led by young leaders.
During World War II the Polish YMCA was closed by the Nazis, but the Polish movement continued to work in France, England, Romania and even in Africa with the Polish Army of General Władysław Anders. The Polish YMCA in London was founded, which still exists today.
Immediately after World War II the YMCA restarted its activity. But after four years, in 1949 the YMCA of Poland was once more closed, this time by the communists. All its possessions were taken over by the government.
The YMCA started its activity again in 1990, with the help of people who were members of the YMCA 40 years earlier. They revived the organisation and involved new members in its activities. It got back its houses in Gdynia, Łódź and Kraków and the camp "Pilica" near Łódź. Today the YMCA of Poland has 18 branches and continues to develop its programmes.
Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately 100 kilometres south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship, having previously been the seat of a separate Radom Voivodeship (1975–1998). Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province with a population of 196,918 (30.06.2023)
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally as the Young Men's Christian Association, and aims to put Christian values into practice by developing a healthy "body, mind, and spirit".
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Żegota was the Polish Council to Aid Jews with the Government Delegation for Poland, an underground Polish resistance organization, and part of the Polish Underground State, active 1942–45 in German-occupied Poland. Żegota was the successor institution to the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews and was established specifically to save Jews. Poland was the only country in German-occupied Europe where such a government-established and -supported underground organization existed.
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Piotrków Trybunalski, often simplified to Piotrków, is a city in central Poland with 71,252 inhabitants (2021). It is the capital of Piotrków County and the second-largest city in the Łódź Voivodeship.
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A Dowództwo Okręgu Korpusu was a military district of the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Second Polish Republic. It served as an organizational, mobilisational, and administrative body of the Polish Army and all local military units of the country were subject to the Corps commands. Also, the DOKs ran all Military Draft Offices of Poland. The system of DOKs was modeled after the French Army, and according to Polish planners, each district located along either Soviet or German border was supposed to field one army. It meant that all districts except for District X, were subject to this rule. The borders of the DOKs did not reflect the Administrative division of Second Polish Republic.
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The National Council of Young Men's Christian Associations of the United States of America is part of the worldwide youth organization YMCA. It has 2,700 separate organizations with 10,000 branches working with 21 million men, women and children, to "strengthen communities through youth development, healthy living and social responsibility." It employs 19,000 staff and is supported by 600,000 volunteers, and YMCA branches have about 10,000 service locations. The first YMCA in the United States opened on December 29, 1851, in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1851 by Captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan (1800–59), an American seaman and missionary.
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