Game on for Poland

Poland is fast becoming the leading video game developer in Europe. 

Video Game Witcher 3 comes out February 2015

It’s an industry built by kids who grew up programming ZX Spectrum computers, sprawled on the living room carpets of their Warsaw apartments, trying to make some magic happen on glowing cathode ray tubes. Kids who taught themselves to code, create computer graphics, and design games, and who now run some of the most dynamic creative studios in Europe.

Venturebeat.com's Gamesbeat contributor Daniel Crawley spent a week visiting some of the game development and film studios making a worldwide name for themselves. You can read the stories that came out of the visit in an in-depth look at the rise of Poland’s game industry. 

Part One

Part Two

Beefing Up Defenses

Poland's Deputy Defense Minister Czeslaw Mroczek said it will acquire combat drones as part of a $42 Billion overhaul of its armed forces amid heightened tensions with Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis.

The Russian use of drones to scope out artillery and other military assets over Ukraine has prompted Poland to use unmanned aircraft as part of its strategy to defend the homeland. 

Warsaw will begin acquiring reconnaissance drones in 2017 and attack models in 2018-2019 as part of the multi-billion dollar upgrade of its military over the next decade. Other military systems and hardware will include acquiring a missile shield and anti-aircraft systems, armored personnel carriers and submarines.

The escalation of tensions with Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis has prompted Poland to move thousands of Polish soldiers currently assigned to facilities in the west to currently little used outposts in the east of the country.

NATO has also set up a rapid defense force comprised of military personnel from several EU nations, but is only stationing equipment and supplies in eastern Poland for use when they are called into action from bases in their home countries.

Still trying to pinch Polanski

Polanski

According to Gazeta Wyborcza the U.S. attempted to extradite Roman Polanski for the alleged 1978 rape of 13 year old Samantha Geimer in Los Angeles. Polanski fled to France after court proceedings began and it looked like he couldn't get a fair trial.

The U.S. reportedly contacted Poland's attorney-general asking that Polanski be detained so extradition procedures could begin. However, the petition was rejected as it was not submitted in the Polish language as required by international agreements.

Polanski was in Poland to attend the opening of the Jewish Museum described in the entry below.


See Samantha's story

Samantha Geimer who would
rather not see the trial proceed

Worth remembering

Jewish life in Poland prior to the Nazi initiated Holocaust is worth celebrating in contrast to the suffering documented and displayed in museums and historical sites concentrating on the horrors of German occupation. 

A new museum dedicated to the history of Jews in Poland, opened this week in what was during WWII Warsaw's Jewish ghetto. The Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews offers a reminder of the Jewish culture that thrived in Poland for millenia before the devastating Nazi occupation.

Some Holocaust survivors were in attendance as the museum unveiled its core exhibition, "A Thousand-Year History of Polish Jews." The museum takes its name from the Hebrew word for Poland, Polin, which means “rest here." When the Jews began settling in Poland in the Middle Ages, they found a tolerant government that offered a great deal of political autonomy, allowing them to thrive for many centuries when they were persecuted and shunned in most other countries .

"When you are a Jew, even if you were not born in Poland, the very name 'Poland' stirs up trembling and longing in your heart," noted Israeli president Reuven Rivlin during the opening ceremony. Of 14 million Jews worldwide, nine million can claim Polish ancestry.