Unlike in Western Europe, where, following the slaying of George Floyd, so-called “sympathy demonstrations” ensued against “American racism,” the Three Seas region has been relatively calm. In fact, if anything, the original sympathy toward the protesters in Minneapolis has turned sour as the images of mayhem, violence, arson and looting across America zoomed over the internet to central and eastern Europe. In Poland, for example, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the defacing of the Kościuszko Monument at Lafayette Park in front of the White House.
General Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746–1817) volunteered to fight for America’s freedom in the War for Independence. He was the architect of the victory at Saratoga in 1777, a turning point in our struggle for sovereignty. Among his many deeds for the cause, Kościuszko fortified West Point and encouraged the creation of a military academy there. A very good friend of Thomas Jefferson, the Polish hero, however, put his money where his mouth was as far as slavery. He willed all the funds and lands granted for his services to him by the Continental Congress to the manumission and education of African slaves in the U.S.