Jan Kobylarz

Machinists: Toolmakers, Engineers, Creators of American Industry Jan Kobylarz

What stands out in this memoir is above all the work that he has treated with exceptional seriousness from the very beginning, describing himself as the "little screw that drives itself into the grand technology as all round machinist and invincible form grinder." Readers not familiar with modern technology will have to be impressed in this fascinating story by the thoroughness with which the author describes complicated production processes and high-precision items produced by his skilled hands. Also astonishing is his ability to recollect the details of social interactions in the workplace as well as among the neighbors. Besides work, the most important place is occupied by the family. A separate, but an equally important "hobby" is history and politics, both the grand one and the smaller, local one. Everywhere, whether at work, at home or social occasions, he participated in discussions, impressing everyone with his historical knowledge and his levelheaded outlook on current developments in the USA, the world, Poland, and Iraq. He also was, is, and always will be a great patriot, an "ambassador of the Polish cause." After all, as he writes in the closing sentences of his memoirs, "neither education nor wealth is important; what is important for us is to represent our country with dignity, wherever we might find ourselves." From the Foreword by Wladyslaw Sobecki