Kosciuszko the man behind the mountain, barely a generation after his death transitioned into Kosciuszko the legend, a champion of human liberty. Kosciuszko was a household name in Britain, Europe and America, a name that became synonymous with the human quest for liberty and justice. British poets of the calibre of Keats, Coleridge and Byron used his name as a symbol of freedom, honour, equality and integrity. Lord Byron for example wrote ‘The sound that crashes in a tyrant’s ear. . . Kosciuszko.’

He was held in very high esteem by eminent people of his day and for decades after. Five American Presidents respected him greatly, three of whom were founding fathers. The French aristocrat, military officer and fellow American Independence War Hero, General Lafayette, said of Kosciuszko:

"His name belongs to the entire civilized world and his virtues belong to all mankind. America ranks him among her most illustrious defenders. Poland mourns him as the best of patriots whose entire life was sacrificed for her liberty and sovereignty. France and Switzerland stand in awe over his ashes, honouring them as the relic of a superior man, a Christian, and a friend of mankind. Russia respects in him the undaunted champion even misfortune could not vanquish".

On April 25th, 1915, Australian troops on foreign soil, fighting for your freedom and ours, at Gallipoli, Turkey, formed a major part of Australian identity. It is characterised by the Anzac spirit of courage, endurance, resourcefulness, mateship, giving everyone a fair go, a disdain of class and the cherishing of being ‘Young And Free’. Kosciuszko was a kindred spirit. He fought in a foreign land for the liberty of others. He showed all the qualities of an Anzac.

The original plaque from Mt Kosciuszko, relocated to the Polish Embassy

NSW Premier Bertram Stevens and his Cabinet

Kosciuszko Monument in Lodz, compilation

In early 1939, with World War II looming, on the initiative of the NSW Premier Bertram Stevens, a memorial committee was formed to erect a memorial at the summit of Mt Kosciuszko in celebration of the centenary of its 1840 naming by Sir Paul Edmund Strzelecki; the committee’s honorary secretary was H J Lamble, the director of the Government Tourist Bureau. Soon after, the Germans invaded Poland and news of atrocities against people and culture began to trickle into newspapers.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 November, 1939, cited a report in “The Times” that the Germans had ‘blown up and demolished the Kosciuszko monument in Liberty Square. Lodz.’ Herr Uebelhoer declared that ‘the Germans were the masters, and would behave as such, while the Poles were the servants and must only serve.’ He added that the Germans must never admit the idea that Poland would ever rise again.’ *)

This article precipitated an immediate response from Kosciusko Memorial Committee Chairman Sir Francis Anderson, Professor of Logic and Mental Philosophy at Sydney University. Anderson asserted that ‘the dictators, raging furiously together, have thrown down the challenge to the ultimate conditions of civilised human fellowship known as Justice, Truth, and Freedom. Democracy itself is a failure and a lie when it disregards these essentials. That is why Poland's cause is ours, and not ours alone, but the cause of all men and nations who value Justice, Truth, and Freedom as the pilot stars of humanity.’ (...) the war should not cause to pass unnoticed such an outstanding anniversary in the nation’s history.

Accordingly, the committee has decided that a memorial plaque bearing a suitable inscription shall be erected on the summit of Mount Kosciusko. On February 15 next the unveiling ceremony will take place on the site a ceremony which may be rightly regarded as having a deep significance for all Australian men, women, and children, most of all perhaps, for the boys and girls, citizens of the next generation, who will have to carry on the work which we have left unfinished for lack of courage and foresight-or of money(...) Let us hope that through his action there will ever remain associated in the minds of Australian boys and girls, the name Kosciusko-Freedom-Poland-Australia.’

The NSW Minister for Education concluded that ‘there is a real historical as well as a sentimental value in interesting the school children of NSW in the memorial’ so he approved an appeal for students to contribute their pennies to the cost of the memorial and its erection: approximately £100. He also approved the proposal that two prizes for a poem, "Kosciusko", be offered through a competition held among NSW schools for students under 14 and for students between the ages of 14 and 17. Each prize was 2 guineas, funded by the Arts Club of Sydney.

Australian Children at the plaque unveiling at Mt Kosciuszko, 1940. NSW State Library

NSW Attorney General, Sir H. Manning delivering a speech at Mt Kosciuszko. NSW State Library

Several hundred people attended the plaque unveiling on Saturday the 17th of February, 1940. Including about 120 children and a party of alpine horsemen; the crowd sang the Australian and Polish national anthems, and a march Poland You Will Rise Again composed by Mrs Florence Brigg-Cooper of Annandale, Sydney.

Strzelecki biographer W L Havard observed that: “The keynote of the sentiments expressed by the speakers was the age-long struggle for freedom. Reference was made to the circumstances that whilst the enemies of freedom were actually at this time destroying ancient monuments to Kosciuszko in Poland, the children of this land—Australia—were raising new ones in his memory and in honour of the same ideal of freedom.” A plastic plaque has replaced the original, now located at the Polish Embassy in Canberra.

Felix Molski

Sir Francis Anderson

Gen. Friedrich Uebelhoer

*)With the arrogance of ephemeral power, General Uebelhoer, in the name of the German people, denied the possibility that Poland would ever rise again; on the other hand, Merian C Cooper, the founder of the Kosciuszko Squadron in 1919 and a man who risked his life for Polish liberty, had more acumen, identifying Poland as the nation that would not die. Tyrants and tyrannies wielding and lusting endlessly for more and more power and control over human life, have attempted time and time again to eradicate Kosciuszko from living memory; they failed yet again at Lodz. Out of the ashes, the Kosciuszko monument unveiled on December 14, 1930, so arrogantly destroyed in 1939, was rebuilt and unveiled at Liberty Square, Lodz, July 22, 1960; the Polish spirit is irrepressible. The singing of Florence Brigg-Cooper’s Poland You Will Rise Again must have been awe inspiring at the time; I wonder if any of the schoolchildren attending would have shed a tear when Poland became independent again in 1989.

Left:

The Times (London, England) Nov. 25, 1939, p.5 Issue 48472