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National Committee of Americans of Polish Extraction, (Polish: ''Komitet Narodowy Amerykanów Polskiego Pochodzenia'' or ''KNAPP'')also known as the National Committee of Americans of Polish Descent or its Polish abbreviation KNAPP , was a Polish-American organization active in the years 1942-1959 in the United States. KNAPP was created in 1942 by Polish activists in the United States to lobby for Poland's independence during World War II. The organization viewed Stalin as a threat to Poland, and campaigned against British and American politicians as they made concessions giving Poland to the Soviet Union. Many Polish Americans joined the cause of the KNAPP and other Polonia organizations during World War II; the group's membership and public visibility peaked in 1944. In 1944, KNAPP started a nationwide Polish American Congress to assemble Polish American leaders for an annual meeting in Buffalo, New York. Following the Yalta Agreement, KNAPP issued messages to its supporters in outrage that the Allies had not honored Poland's pre-war borders and effectively handed Poland to the USSR. The organization continued in the postwar years lobbying American politicians to raise awareness of atrocities committed against Poles in the Soviet Union. ==History== The National Committee of Americans of Polish Extraction (NCAPE) was created on June 20–21, 1942 on the initiative of several Piłsudskiites, followers of the late Marshal Józef Piłsudski. Individuals associated with the Committee accused the Polish government-in-exile of compromising policies toward the Soviet Union and naiveté toward the attitude of the Western Allies regarding the Polish question. The NCAPE aimed to defend Polish interests, especially the independence and territorial integrity of the prewar Republic, as well as to lobby for the implementing of the Atlantic Charter and the conditions of the Polish-British Alliance of August 28, 1939. The activists of the Committee thought that Poland's right to an independent existence were threatened not only directly by the occupants, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, but also indirectly by the irresponsible and cynical diplomatic games of Great Britain and the United States. In their opinion, these Western powers were willing to pay any price to preserve their alliance with Stalin, which they thought fundamental to defeating the Third Reich. Among the founders of the NCAPE were Wacław Jędrzejewicz, Ignacy Matuszewski, Henryk Floyar-Rajchman and Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski. They decided to leave Europe for the United States after the defeat of France in 1940. In America, they saw a potential ally for Poland and the crucial geopolitical player in forging the European peace in the future. Consequently, the founders of the Committee established contacts with the Polish-American Piłsudskiites. The activity of the NCAPE found little understanding in the circles of the Roosevelt administration, but its biggest enemies were the communists living in the United States who proclaimed themselves to be representatives of the entire American Polonia. Such opposition to the NCAPE stemmed from the sociopolitical atmosphere in the United States, which resulted from the meticulous work of the Soviet intelligence rezident. Soviet agents had since the 1930s seized control of a large section of intellectual, cultural and scientific life in America so that on the eve of the Second World War they were able to influence the federal government and the directions of American foreign policy. The work of Soviet Intelligence in the United States was supervised by Vasily Zarubin, the infamous officer of the NKWD connected to the Katyn Massacre (screened the Polish officers at the Kozelsk camp in terms of their utility to the Soviet Union). In consequence, the Committee was subject to systematic attacks in the press and on the political forum. The NCAPE signaled the need to create a central political organization for the American Polonia, which had not existed until that point. Behind the initiative was the idea that only the citizens of the United States are eligible to vote in the American elections and can influence Washington. The Committee was joined in its efforts to create a political organization by the editors and publishers of newspapers: Maksymilian Węgrzynek in New York and Franciszek Januszewski in Detroit. Both dailies attracted the readership of members of Polish-American organizations, notably that of the three largest: Polish National Alliance (''Związek Narodowy Polski''), ''Zjednoczenie Polskie Rzymsko-Katolickie'' i ''Związek Polek w Ameryce'' with the headquarters in Chicago. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「National Committee of Americans of Polish Extraction」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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