Our album is intended to remind soldiers of the missions they participated in, and to bring the abroad operations of our army closer to the civilians – says Mariusz Sybilski and Tomasz Jasionek, authors of the publication “Beyond Borders”. On 180 pages they describe 99 abroad missions in which Polish soldiers and civilian workers of MON participated for 70 years.
– This book is not only a evidence of missionary events, but besides a tribute to veterans – he says about the album "Beyond Borders. past of the participation of Polish soldiers in military abroad missions" by Colonel Katarzyna Rałdowska, manager of the Veteran Centre for Activities outside the State Borders. Its authors are 2 employees of the Education and Tradition squad of the Veterinary Centre Mariusz Sybilski and Tomasz Jasionek. During the author's evening, which took place on Thursday 27 February at the Central Military Library in Warsaw, they told about the scenes of this publication. The inspiration was an exhibition organized respective years ago at the Veteran Centre, dedicated to the participation of Polish soldiers in military operations outside the country. Since then, this facility had 3 directors, each supporting the release of the album: Col. Leszek Stępnia, Colonel. Stephen’s Deaf and Colonel Dr. Katarzyna Radziwska.
Quarters and interviews
The basic question that the authors had to answer was: how many missions have there been since 1953? The answer was not simple at all, due to the fact that different sources gave different numbers. Over the past 70 years, units have changed to send soldiers to abroad operations. First they were global committees, then the UN, OSCE, NATO and the EU. “The improvement of the album “Beyond Borders” required a wide scope of queries, many interviews with veterans and a search for data on a given mission,” says Mariusz Sybilski.
The book has 180 pages and is the most fresh publication on the mission. He describes 70 years of Polish abroad military operations, from 1953 to 2023. However, this year the participation of Polish soldiers in specified operations does not end, as a tiny contingent participated in 2024 in securing the Olympic Games in Paris (PKW Olimp).
The first presumption was that a single mission would be described on the timetable, or 2 pages. But how can we describe 20 years of operations in Afghanistan on specified a surface, involving nearly 30,000 Polish soldiers? You should have broken the pattern. In turn, little space was devoted to OSCE missions organised by the Ministry of abroad Affairs, as it was hard to scope information on them. “If no Polish soldier took part, we could not take them into account,” explains Tomasz Jasionek.
3D graphics and QR codes
The album has a dynamic layout, contains many unreleased photos. any came from veterans – participants of a given mission, others from the Combat Camera squad of Operations Command of the Armed Forces Types. – peculiar attention should be paid to the sky-high photographs of Combat Camera documenting the allied mission of ASIC – support of Icelandic peace-time capabilities in the surveillance of airspace in 2021", says Mariusz Sybilski. – We wanted our album to be attractive to civilians, but besides to make photographs of individual memorabilia from the mission: photos, coins, decorations remind soldiers of time of service outside the country – adds Tomasz Jasionek.
The publication besides includes 3D graphics. These include visualizations The town hall in Iraqi Karbala, which was defended by Polish and Bulgarian soldiers in 2004 by militants, whether the oil terminal in Iraq, which was occupied by GROM specialists in March 2003.
Some pages of the album contain a QR code. All you gotta do is scan it, for example, to go from a website dedicated to soldiers who died in missions abroad to the Veteran Centre website, where you can find more information. Scanning the QR code on a page dedicated to the Nobel Peace Prize, which was granted to UN forces in 1988, will redirect to the Norwegian tv website that broadcast this event. 1 of the recipients of this award was the Polish soldier St. Chor. staff. Edward Ziobro.
The album was printed by the Military Centre for Civic Education. The publication is not available for sale, but can be found in selected libraries, including the Library of the Veteran Centre, the Central Military Library and the Library of the Polish Military Museum. The authors hope for an extra. “We would like the album to scope the widest possible audience,” they say.
