Whereas the base and column, the design of John H. B. Latrobe (1803-1891), of the Kosciuszko Monument at West Point, which had been dedicated by the Corps of Cadets of the United States Military Academy of West Point, New York, on July 4, 1828, thereby making it the world's second oldest national monument dedicated to honor the memory of Kosciuszko, Poland's national monument to honor Kosciuszko's memory -- the Kosciuszko Mound (Kopiec Kosciuszki in Polish) -- is the oldest, having been completed in 1823. At some 110 feet in height itself, its summit on Sikornik Hill reaches some 1100 feet above the city of Krakow. The Kosciuszko Mound is in effect what Poles term to be a hill upon a hill (gora na gorze). Pictured here courtesy of the Kosciuszko Mound Committee, is an aerial view of the installation where partially masked by the trees on the far right of the circumferential wall is the small Chapel of Blessed Bronislawa at the foot of the Mound. The Chapel had been the site on June 18, 2019 of the Committee's formal induction ceremony of Anthony J. Bajdek, a retired Associate Dean and Senior Lecturer in History of Northeasern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and President / Founder of the American Association of the Friends of Kosciuszko ar West Point (AAFKWP). The Kosciuszko Mound Committee had been established in 1820 to provide perpetual care of the Mound, a mission that it faithfully discharges to this day under the guidance of its 11th Lifetime President, that being Professor Mieczyslaw Rokosz, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus in History of Jagiellonian University in Krakow. The Kosciuszko Mound Committee's induction of Dean Bajdek as an Honorary Member was in itself an historical event in its organizational history insofar as Bajdek, being American-born, is the first foreigner of any nation apart from Poland, ever to be inducted into Honorary Membership for reason to be iluminated as this section of the AAFKWP website progresses.      

• 1820-1856  Franciszwk Kwasery Paszkowski
• 1856-1878  Piotr Moszynski
• 1878-1883  Franciszek Wladyslaw Paszkowski
• 1884-1917  Stanislaw Tarnowski
• 1917-1926  Franciszek Paszkowski
• 1926-1936  Stefan Skrzynski
• 1936-1951  Karol Rolle
• 1951-1984  Karol Estreicher
• 1984-1992  Wojciech Maria Bartel
• 1992-1994  Ignacy Trybowski
• 1994-         Mieczyslaw Rokosz

In contrast, thre are only six Honorary Members of the Committee, all solely of 21st rather than 19th or 20th century vintage, listed separately on a plaque of Greek marble on the wall on the right side of the altar in the Blessed Bronislawa Chapel: 

•  2010  Franciszek Cardinal Macharski 
•  2012  Franciszek Ziejka
•  2017  Rev. Jerzy Bryla, Jerzy Wyrozumski and Jacek Purchla
•  2019  Anthony J. Bajdek  USA 

NOTE: In 1964, Karol Wojtyla had been appointed by Pope Paul VI to serve as the Archbishop of Krakow, and three years later in 1967, he was raised by Pope Paul VI to serve as Cardinal as well. Subsequently, when Karol Cardinal Wojtyla was elected to the papacy by the College of Cardinals in 1978 and  became Pope John Paul II, his friend, Franciszek Cardinal Macharski, became his successor as Archbishop of Krakow. Insofar as Dean Bajdek is the first foreigner to become an Honorary Member of the Kosciuszko Mound Committee, his American citizenry is identified appropriately as USA on the plaque of Honorary Members, the first of whom was Franciszek Cardinal Macharski, Archbishop of Krakow.

Two years earlier in 2017, the Mayor of Krakow, Jacek Majchrowski, had bestowed the Honoris Gratia Medal on Dean Bajdek in recognition of his service in promoting the legacy of Krakow, as well as of Kosciuszko, in the United States.

As the members of the Committee began filing into the Chapel, Dean Bajdek confided to his wife, Cynthia, that it was difficult for him to believe that all of it was actually happening. Although he had been informed by Professor Rokosz a year or so earlier that he would be inducted as an Honorary Member of the Committee, he never suspected that it would involve a formal ceremony that was about to begin in the early evening of June 18, 2019. In the phtograph, U. S. Air Force Colonel Carlos Alvorado, the Liaison Officer in the U. S. Consulate in Krakow, congratulates Bajdek of his induction into the Kosciuszko Mound Committee. Born in Texas, one of Colonel Alvarado's grandfathers ws Polish. Needless to say, the Colonel, a graduate of the U. S. Air Force Academy, spoke fluent Polish.

But indeed, the induction ceremony did occur, adding a new fragment of the history of the venerable Kosciuszko Mound Committee.

Everyone who had been expected to participate in witnessing the induction had arrived and were seated comfortably.

After relating aspects of Dean Bajdek's curriculum vitae, Professor Rokosz identified the precise reasons for Bajdek's induction that had been included for the benefit of the public on the website of the Kosciuszko Mound Committee in advance of the induction ceremony. Essentially, he stated that three salient points convinced the Committee to select Dean Bajdek for Honorary Membership upon Dr. Rokosz's recommendation, namely, (1) that Bajdek is one of the most active of Kosciuszko-related activists, and indeed, the most energetic to commemorate Kosciuszko in the world, (2) largely by way of the Annual Kosciuszko Conferences of the American Association of the Friends of Kosciuszko at West Point that he founded in 2003, and of which he is the President and Founder, and (3) for his having donated on behalf of his Association in 2008, the commemorative plaque which established a transatlantic bridge of kindred spirit and purpose that forever connects the Kosciuszko Mound Committee and the American Association of the Friends of Kosciuszko at West Point, working together to perpetuate a common purpose. Please refer to the earlier section of this website titled, "Retrospect (2008)" for a comprehensive description of the circumstances associated with the commemorative plaque of 2008. 

It is necessary to note for Americans that the two crossed Polish scythes on the wall above the marble plaque with the names of the Committee's Lifetime Presidents, were placed there to remind visitors that in 1794 at the battle of Raclawice, Kosciuszko largely defeated Russian forces because of the Polish peasant scythe bearers, their only weapons being scythes, which were farm implements, to break into the line of Russian artillery and turn the tide of the battle in favor of the Poles.

(The successive photos of the induction ceremony speak for themselvs, as the expression goes.)

There could never be a more suitable, and spiritually humbling, location for the Committee's induction ceremony.

A close-up view that will never be forgotten by the day's honoree, an American-born foreigner of Polish descent from the State of New Hampshire. 

These are a few of the photographs taken by Professor Rokosz's wife, Anna, to whom the American Association of the Friends of Kosciuszko at West Point expresses its sincere gratutude, alomg with that of Anthony and Cynthia Bajdek.

Thank you for perusing this section of our Association's website.