What Is Poland Famous For?
Poland is famous for being the home of scientist Marie Curie, composer Frederic Chopin and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Three of the most famous Nazi concentration camps were also located in Poland: Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Several Nobel Prize winners also came from Poland. One of them was Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. The country has had multiple winners in the literature category, with Henryk Sienkiewicz winning the award in 1905 and Wislawa Szymborska winning in 1996. The 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Andrew V. Schally. Schally was born in Poland, but the place where he was born was part of Belarus as of 2014.
Nicolaus Copernicus was somewhat of a jack of all trades. In addition to his work as an astronomer, he was also a mathematician, physician, translator, economist and governor. Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize for two different scientific disciplines and taught at the University of Paris. Chopin died before the age of 40, but he composed hundreds of pieces during his short life. He is known as Poland’s greatest composer, according to Anouk Lorie of CNN.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was one of the major extermination centers used by the Nazi party. This camp also served as a labor camp. Prisoners dug trenches, carried sand bags, bore tunnels and extracted stones from the ground. Approximately 3.5 million Jews died in Poland’s six extermination centers, according to the United States Holocaust Museum. Soviet prisoners of war and Roma people were also kept in these camps.
