Poland's cinema directors bring back the memory of wartime heroes, who were doomed to silence by the former communist authorities, twenty years after organized crime was born in the ex-communist states, Poland's crime groups look like Sunday class pupils compared with their counterparts in Russia, Serbia or Slovakia, tourist-shoppers come in droves to Poland.

Press reviewed by Krystyna Kolosowska 

Wprost writes that forgotten heroes are returning to Polish history pages. The pre-war and wartime leaders, regarded as enemies of Poland under communist rule, branded as criminals, falsely accused of cooperation with the Nazis, espionage and an attempt to depose the communists. This past week, a movie about General August Emil Fieldorf, known as general Nil during the Nazi occupation of Poland, premiered in cinemas throughout the country. The legendary commander of underground subversive units, General Nil himself revealed his name and wartime function, when the communists announced an amnesty for people like him. But the amnesty was a sham, and Nil was sentenced to death in 1952 after a kangaroo trial. Today, after fifty years of silence enforced by the communists and broken only to discredit them, these heroes are back but only as cold, dead monuments. Because what happened to them is worse than a kangaroo trial, torture and martyrdom – there is no live memory of them in the Polish society.

Przekroj is lambasting Russia over its reaction to the post-election unrest in Moldova. Russia is showing again that it is treating countries like Moldova as part of its sphere of influence and is in fact dictating foreign policy priorities to them. It used the same mechanism with regard to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, unsuccessfully trying to block their entry into NATO and the EU. The Russian media are unanimously showing the unrest in Moldova in a negative light, describing the demonstrators as terrorists. One can perceive fear behind this attitude, fear that a similar situation may repeat itself in Russia.

Tygodnik Powszechny writes with alarm that only 13 percent of Poles have declared readiness to vote in the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament. It points out that the knowledge of the principles and the idea of these elections is dramatically poor in Poland, not speaking about the awareness of the real benefits and risks resulting from membership in the EU. In two months from now, it may turn out that the past five years of euro-education was a wasted time, if Polish representatives to the EP are elected only by one in ten of the people eligible to vote.

Polityka recalls that organised crime was born in post-communist countries twenty years ago. The appearance of the mafia in Poland was originally disregarded. Only after some spectacular shootings, when the mafia began to make its presence felt, did the police and the media start to diagnose this new phenomenon. First they saw the typical mafia man with a thick-neck, shaved head, a golden necklace, a luxury car, wearing a track suit. But hidden in the background were key mafia figures, wearing tailored suits, holding an elegant briefcase, smelling of an expensive cologne. Such was an outfit of former special service functionaries, who switched to organised crimes after the collapse of the communist system. The trend was similar in other post-communist states. Today, compared with their Russian, Serb and even Bulgarian counterparts, Polish mafia men look like Sunday school pupils, Polityka claims. They do not operate on such a big scale, concentrating on money extortion, attacks on trucks, smuggling spirits and kidnapping for ransom. Twenty years after their birth, the Polish organised crime scene has changed completely. The two biggest gangs were crushed. Still operating on the market are small groups, formed by criminals who get together for a concrete task. The police claim they have everything under control.

Newsweek says that shopping tourism is experiencing a boom in Poland thanks to the weak Polish zloty. The Lithuanians, Slovaks, Czechs and Germans are coming here in droves. Supermarkets, but also smaller shops, in border regions are virtually besieged by buyers from the neighboring countries, who are taking advantage of what is for them a beneficial exchange rate. Experts predict that the mass arrival of Lithuanian, Czech and Slovak shoppers to Poland will last as long as the zloty remains cheap. But the Germans, who have thicker wallets, are a different story. They are beginning to trust Poland. They come to Poland to buy goods, but also – increasingly – medical services, and they combine shopping with sightseeing. If we offer them high quality, they will keep visiting Poland also when the zloty gains in value, says Newsweek.

Warsaw Business Journal reports that the international coffee juggernaut Starbucks opened its first Polish shop last Wednesday in Warsaw, with another to follow in Wroclaw. The firm is tight-lipped on future expansion, but confident that it can out-caffeinate its competition. “I see that Poles have an affinity for coffee when I see all the coffee houses in the city,” said Buck Hendrix, president of Starbucks Coffee EMEA. He added, “We entered Poland with respect for the coffee house culture that already exists here.”