Literary Institute moves into a new home at 91 Avenue de Poissy on the border of Maisons-Laffitte and Le Mesnil-le-Roi (premises purchased largely through donations from readership). Kultura starts awarding literary prizes and Marian Pankowski becomes the first recipient.
POLAND
Józef Światło, a high-ranking official in the Polish Ministry of Public Security defects to the West. Władysław Gomułka is freed from prison. War-time resistance leader, General August Emil Fieldorf (Nil), is executed in a communist prison. Kultura vilified in Polish press, e.g. by Jerzy Broszkiewicz in Przegląd Kulturalny (Cultural Review): “Those from under the sign of the black Kultura, who propose to exonerate the SS, theoreticians who would bring war to the world”.
WORLD
US tests second hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll. Dien Bien Phu falls to the Viet Minh. Sino-French pact ends Indo-China War. Gamal Abdel Nasser assumes power in Egypt. Paris Peace Accords end the occupation, and grant West Germany sovereignty and admittance to NATO and to the newly formed Western European Union.
