Curitiba, in the state of Paraná, Brazil has many parks, and several of them honor the various immigrant nationalities that form a part of this diverse city. Curitiba, in fact, is the only city in Brazil that has its own name in Polish: Kurytyba.  When he visited Brazil in 1980, Pope John Paul II went to Curitiba, where he gave a mass in Polish.  It’s no wonder that the Polish Brazilians honored him by calling the park dedicated to Polish culture  “Bosque do Papa” – The Pope’s Woods.

In this park, there are several small buildings which were moved to the park from their original locations; they are not replicas – they are the actual original buildings that Polish immigrants built when they arrived in Brazil, starting in the year 1869. Between 1869 and 1920, approximately 60,000 Polish immigrants settled in southern Brazil. These buildings represent the resilience not…