"Catheism of the Polish Child" was composed in the darkest days of Polish history.
For a hundred years, despite numerous and bloody uprisings, Poland had been partitioned among three major powers: the German Empire, Imperial Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
And it seemed they would last forever.
Eighteen years later, as a result of the WW1, the partition powers ceased to exist.
At the insistence of the American president, the Peace Treaty of Versailles required the "creation of an independent Polish state."
The representatives of the newly created Weimar Republic (i.e., Germany) were told to sign on the dotted line and like it.
Twenty-one years later, they tried again. Nazi German...