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OTTAWA - Pawel Dobrowolski departed from Ottawa at the end of July after four years as a head of the Polish embassy, and now his successor, Piotr Ogrodzinski has arrived in Ottawa.

On Wednesday, November 3, 2004, at Rideau Hall, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada, received the credentials of the new Polish ambassador His Excellency Piotr Ogrodzinski.

In his prelude to taking the office in Ottawa Mr. Grodzinski's name appeared in the Canadian context within past few months of this year.

We all remember well recent incident with Canadian broadcaster CTV, when they called Treblinka a Polish Death Camp. Piotr Ogrodzinski was the one, who summoned Canadian ambassador to his office. The Canadian ambassador to Poland, Ralph Lysyshyn has been called to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs after a Canadian broadcaster identified the World War II Nazi death camp Treblinka as a Polish concentration camp. Then Director of the American Department, Piotr Ogrodzinski, said that the term was improper and noted that CTV News refused to correct it despite action taken by the Polish embassy in Ottawa.

Mr. Ogrodzinski is very familiar with Polish Embasses. One could say that he was born in one - Polish embassy in Paris, France, in 1951. He is the son of Przemyslaw Ogrodzinski, who was longstanding Polish ambassador in Paris and Rome, then General Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.

Przemyslaw Ogrodzinski was an active member of the Society of Independent Socialist Youth (ZNMS - Zwiazek Niezaleznej Mlodziezy Socjalistycznej) in Lwow, which was a subsidiary of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS - Polska Partia Socjalistyczna) in Lwow, a co-organizer of the Council for Aid to Jews.

Przemyslaw Ogrodzinski was also one of the "fathers" of the so called Rapacki Plan for an atom-bomb-free zone in Europe. The Polish foreign minister Adam Rapacki was chosen to open Moscow's post-Sputnik campaign with a proposal to the UN General Assembly in October 1957 for a ban on nuclear weapons in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the two Germanies.

Adam Rapacki was born in December 1909 in Lwow. He studied in France and Italy and became active in organizing Socialist youth groups. Przemyslaw Ogrodzinski joined one of them - ZNMS in Lwow. Both, Rapacki and Przemyslaw Ogrodzinski joined the Communist Party after the World War II, and Rapacki became a member of the first Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR - Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza). In 1956-68, Rapacki was Minister of Foreign Affairs. While posted in Paris and Rome, Ogrodzinski followed Rapacki's footsteps, from his student years.

Przemyslaw Ogrodzinski was also posted in New Delhi, India. He personally handed over a new version of the Rapacki Plan, "Polish" initiative called this time a Gomulka Plan, to the German ambassador to India Duckwitz in 1964. To pass their memorandum to Germans this time Polish communist government didn't use Swedish services, as they did in 1958.

Back to the Ogrodzinski Jr., new Polish ambassador to Canada.

Economic Science was Mr. Ogrodzinski's area of study at the university. He spent five years at the University of Warsaw, working towards his Master's degree, which he received in 1974. 1969-1974 M.A., Department of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. Research, interests and publications on: International relations and security; the concept of civil society, its history and its application to the study of communist and post-communist countries; studies on transformation in Poland and East-Central Europe, 17th-18th c. English spoken political theory.

Four years later, in 1978, he joined the Polish Academy of Sciences as an Assistant Professor (adjunct), teaching in the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology. Mr. Ogrodzinski would remain in this role for 12 years. During this time he completed his Ph.D. from the same Institute in 1984.

In 1990, Mr. Ogrodzinski left the Academy of Sciences to become Coordinator of the East European Research Group, part of the Stefan Batory Foundation. One year into this position, he returned to his former post at the Academy, working for both groups simultaneously. In 1992, Mr. Ogrodzinski left the Research Group, and worked solely as an Assistant Professor for one year before taking a second post, this time with the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the Deputy Director of the Department of Strategic Studies in the Ministry's Institute of International Affairs. In 1994-1997 he was Deputy Director and Acting Director in the Department of Studies and Planning, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 1997, he assumed his first diplomatic assignment. He served in the Polish Embassy in Washington, D. C. as Minister Counsellor for one year, and by 1998 was promoted to Deputy Chief of the Mission. Mr. Ogrodzinski returned to Warsaw in 2001 and began directing the Americas Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was his most recent position before being posted to head the Polish mission in Canada.


Selected other activities:

- 1993-1994 Member of the group preparing and executing training program for the decision-makers in public service at the National School of Public Administration.

- 1989 Member of the Election Promoting Group and attached to it clandestine think thank, at the National Citizen Committee, coordinating propaganda of "Solidarity" in the June 1989 parliamentary elections.

- 1982-1988 Participant of the MRK "S" (Interfactory Workers Committee "Solidarity") an underground "Solidarity" organization.

- 1981-1982 Member of the editing board "NTO" (an acronym for Science, Technology, Education), theoretical bi-weekly of the Solidarity Trade Union, "Mazowsze" Region.

      (W Domu Polskim SPK, Ottawa, 14 XI 2004)
Nowy ambasador RP w Kanadzie goscil w Domu Polskim SPK w Ottawie z okazji Swieta Niepodleglosci 11 Listopada. Powiedzial wtedy:

Ja mysle, ze z Polski mamy prawo byc dumni. Mamy prawo byc dumni; to starsze pokolenie - pokolenie okresu miedzywojennego, i to pokolenie, ktore nosi w sobie ciezar doswiadczen II Wojny Swiatowej, i to pokolenie, z ktorym ja sie indentyfikuje - pokolenie "Solidarnosci".

Rzeczywistosc sie zmienila gwaltownie i zmienila sie w ten sposob, ze mam poczucie, ze naleze do pokolenia Polakow szczesliwych, to znaczy pokolenia, ktore chcialo cos i osiagnelo to, czego pragnelo, do czego dazylo.

Chcialem Panstwa serdecznie pozdrowic i powiedziec, ze bardzo sie ciesze, ze bede wspolpracowal z Polonia kanadyjska, ta wspaniala Polonia, ktora i potrafi kochac wlasny kraj, i potrafi kultywowac tradycje.