Poland in New Zealand

Adopted on 3 May 1791 in Warsaw by the Sejm of the Polish Republic (later known as the Great Sejm), the Polish Constitution was Europe’s first and the world’s second modern constitution.

"The murders of at least 21,857 Polish prisoners-of-war were clinical, brutal and carried out day after day in remote Russian locations in April and May 1940. In the Katyń forest, trees muffled the shots of the specialised executioners, Soviet NKVD officers" - writes Barbara Scrivens in her emotional and personal presentation with stories told by the Polish families in New Zealand who lost their loved ones in the Katyń Massacre.

On 10 April 2010, a special TU-154M plane with the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński and the First Lady Maria Kaczyńska on board took off from Warsaw to Smolensk. On that very day the members of the official delegation were to participate in the ceremonies taking place in the Katyn War Cemetery, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the crime committed there. The aircraft carried 96 people, including members of the highest state authorities, representatives of various social circles and religious denominations, high-ranking military commanders and the plane’s crew. All the flight passengers died in the air disaster which took place during landing at the airport near Smolensk.

Please read through important information regarding the latest epidemiological threat.

On 9-12 March 2020, Polish Ambassador Zbigniew Gniatkowski paid an official visit to the Kingdom of Tonga.

Read the full version of the Polish Ambassador’s letter to the New Zealand International Review, March-April issue, published by the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs in Wellington.

Wolves Summit is an international conference for start-ups, investors, and corporates. It focuses on networking and facilitating business development. The upcoming 11th edition will take place on: 24-25 March 2020 in Warsaw, Poland

Scholarships for the Polish diaspora are addressed to foreigners of Polish origin. They enable young people of Polish origin and holders of the Card of the Pole (Karta Polaka) to study in Poland (full-time programmes, in the Polish language) in higher education institutions supervised by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Applications deadline is 16 March 2020.

Renata Vickrey, Archive Librarian and Prof. Ben Tyson, Department of Communication from Central Connecticut State University presented their research findings upon the assessment of the determinants of Polish identity among first and second-generation New Zealand-born individuals of Polish descent.

Delegation from the Second World War Museum in Gdańsk, including the Director dr Karol Nawrocki, visited New Zealand. The director gave a public lecture at the National Library and held a series of meetings with representatives of New Zealand cultural institutions. Meetings with the Polish Diaspora and film notations with witnesses of history were of special importance.