Mme. Curie and Poland

Grey River Argus, 7 September 1939, Page 10

Mme. Curie and Poland

Mme. Curie would be following the news with anxiety if she were alive to-day. Even as a girl of seventeen she wanted above all to work for the freedom of her native country, Poland. Her passionate love of it was exceeded later only by her love of science. Many years afterwards she had to choose between returning W| Poland, on the one hand, and marrying Pierre Curie and continuing her work in Paris, on the other. The world knows the result of her choice. But during her long life in France she never ceased to take an intense interest in her native country. When, after their arduous years of research work under the most adverse conditions in the now famous leaxy shed which served, as a laboratory, radioactive pitch-blende yielded up to . her and her husband a new element, without hesitation she asked him, “Could we call it polonium?” Six months later she isolated radium. Poland may disappear, but polonium and radium will remain for all time.-—“ Manchester Guardian,”