Janta Endowment Fund Campaign

In 2015 the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo received a generous Challenge Grant of $100,000 dollars from Mrs. Walentytna Polczynski Janta. The Club would need to raise an additional $100,000 over 5 years to keep the whole amount. Whatever money not matched would be transferred to a fund in her name to a University in Wroclaw, Poland. The purpose of the grant was to establish an Endowment called The Aleksander and Walentyna Janta-Polczynski Endowment Fund. Her husband Aleksander, a renowned writer, poet, journalist and activist served as the third President of the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo from 1949-1951 and later as President of the American Council for Polish Culture (ACPC).

Janta biographer, Michal Folega from Gdansk, Poland, detailed their life story in a presentation at the 20th Century Club on May 9, 2024. The Jantas lived in Buffalo for only 7 years and moved to Elmhurst, NY where they maintained a bookstore. Asked why Mrs. Janta chose to leave such a generous gift to Buffalo she declared that their time in Buffalo with her friends at the Polish Arts Club were the happiest years of her life. She wanted to assure that the Polish Arts Club would continue to provide high quality programming for generations to come and to expand its offerings by inviting distinguished writers, poets and playwrights who speak English to give lectures and readings at appropriate venues in Western New York.

The generous gift was invested in the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo. The Club met the Challenge in 2020. In a visit to Buffalo in July of 2021, the executor of Mrs. Janta’s estate, her niece, expanded on the fund’s use to include not only theatre but also musical performance, lectures, and exhibits in the Fine Arts and on topics of Polish History. The seven Fine Arts are painting, sculpture, music, dance, poetry and literature.

Walentyna Janta Polczynski (nee Stocker 1913-2020, ) was the last surviving member of the Polish government, in-exile during the Second World War, and a founder of the Polish wartime resistance radio station Świt (Dawn). She was one of its first announcers. Janta-Polczynska became the personal secretary to the Polish Prime Minister, legendary Polish Statesman Gen. Władysław Sikorski. She also translated and prepared reports of the inhuman treatment of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, which were key to Polish wartime intelligence. A recipient of the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, Walentyna was a philanthropist and the center of Polish-American culture in New York. Their home was a centerpiece of the community, a popular spot for gatherings. Janta-Polczynska became known as the “First Lady of Polish-Americans.” She died at the age of 107. She was given a State funeral in Poland and buried next to her husband Aleksander at Pawazki Cemetary in Warsaw, Poland.

Continued support for the fund may be made online through our donation form, or by sending a check payable to the “Polish Arts Club of Buffalo, Inc.-Janta Fund.”