chicago (ap) | Edward Moskal, who assisted scores of people in the United States and Poland through his leadership of the Polish American Congress, but who was also criticized for what some saw as anti-Jewish comments, died last week. He was 80.
Moskal died in his Chicago home Tuesday, March 22. His daughter, Pamela Komorowski, said he died of natural causes.
Since 1988, Moskal was national president of the Polish American Congress, an umbrella organization of many Polish American fraternal, veteran and cultural groups around the nation.
But he came under fire a number of times for comments he made. In 1996, for example, the National Polish American-Jewish American Council severed ties with the Polish American Congress after Moskal wrote a letter to Poland’s president in which he attacked “the submissiveness of the Polish authorities with respect to the demands raised by Jews.”
Moskal’s defenders say sometimes he simply was misunderstood.
“He was a very strong man and he said things in a very strong way,” said T. Ron Jazinski-Herbert, spokesman for the Polish National Alliance. “People would use that in the wrong way.”