Nenagh teacher wins national Polish award
A teacher at St Mary's Secondary School in Nenagh has received a prestigious Polish award in recognition of his preservation of memories of the Warsaw Uprising.
Cornelius (Con) McGrath, who teaches History and Religion at St Mary's, was presented with the ‘BohaterON’ Gold award in Warsaw at the end of last month. He was nominated for the award for his promotion of the historical links between Poland and Ireland, particularly his research into the 1944 uprising.
Mr McGrath conducted English language interviews with almost 50 survivors of the uprising, bringing a greater understanding of this tragic event of the Second World War to a widespread audience, including his students in Nenagh.
“I was always interested in Polish history and always found there were great similarities between Ireland and Poland fighting against stronger neighbours that took them over, and yet there was always a passion for freedom,” said Mr McGrath, who writes a series in Ireland's Own about the role of the Irish in WWII, for which he interviews Irish veterans of the conflict. He also wrote about the Warsaw Uprising in Ireland's Eye.
“I was just shocked at the real tragedy of Polish history,” he added of wanting to bring new perspective to our understanding of how the war ended. “We think of Victory in Europe, and France liberated, but that's not the Polish story. They just swapped Hitler for Stalin.”
The Nenagh schoolteacher was keenly taken by the Warsaw Uprising, a desperate battle between the Polish resistance and Nazi occupiers, which lasted for 63 days and ultimately ended with the complete destruction of the city.
A CHANCE MEETING
“Obviously, I don't speak Polish but I always thought it would be great to interview some veterans of the uprising to see was it similar to 1916,” Mr McGrath said. “I thought it would be interesting to compare what it was like.”
While on holiday in London, he got talking to a museum director, who was Polish. He mentioned how he knew a woman that had been involved in the Warsaw Uprising and had lived in London since the war.
Her name was Marzenna Schejbal, a liason officer and nurse with the resistance, and she became the catalyst for Mr McGrath's series of interviews. He was spellbound by what she related about her experience of the war. Marzenna then made him aware of other survivors of the uprising, living in different parts of the world, all of whom could also speak English.
The St Mary's teacher found himself travelling to Warsaw for the 75th anniversary of the uprising in 2019. There, he met and interviewed veterans now living in the US, Canada and Australia.
SCHOOL PROJECT
He was amazed to find so many of them still alive, and even more so by what they told him. He decided to work some of their experience into his teaching methods in Nenagh, playing clips from his recorded interviews to give his students ‘first-hand’ accounts of what it was like to be in combat amid the most hopeless odds.
“They were able to relate to these people because these people who I interviewed now would have been 14, 15 at the time of World War II,” Mr McGrath said, adding that the girls at St Mary's appreciated hearing accounts from “ordinary people”, as opposed to the military officers or politicians involved.
The girls especially liked the the real-life stories of romance that managed to spring from those harrowing times. Another standout interview was that of Basia Berner, a little girl in 1944, who was given the job of delivering coded messages to the Polish resistance. She was present to see Hitler in Warsaw following the Nazi invasion in 1939.
The whole experience was of course of interest to the many Polish students at St Mary's, and Mr McGrath said their Irish classmates were just as interested. He and his students conducted a short video presentation on the many historic links between Ireland and Poland, while at the same time calling for peace in the world today. The video was shared on social media and caught the attention of the Polish Embassy in Dublin, as well as the Warsaw Rising Museum in Poland.
“I just feel that it's a good teaching tool,” Mr McGrath said. “That's why I got the award in Poland. They were impressed with linking experiences with actual people from history.”
FOR THE VETERANS
That said, the St Mary's teacher admitted to being very surprised and humbled to learn that an Irishman had won the top award from 'BohaterON', a nationwide Polish organisation aimed at commemorating and honouring the participants of the Warsaw Uprising, as well as promoting the history of Poland in the 20th century.
“This award of course belongs to all the incredible veterans and their families, who have so kindly shared their amazing stories with me,” Mr McGrath stated. “Their willing and eager co-operation is most humbling.”
Praising the management and staff at St Mary's, where he has observed a great learning environment in his three years of teaching, Mr McGrath mentioned that his students have had their history projects published in the Nenagh Guardian, Tipperary Star, local history journals and Ireland's Own. He is eager to build on the momentum he has gathered and plans to publish a book of all the interviews, providing an “on the ground perspective of what it was like to be a participant in the Warsaw Uprising”.
Mr McGrath invited anyone from Nenagh's Polish community with stories about the Warsaw Uprising to contact him through the school.