When  Hoover came to Poland in 1919, newspapers announced his arrival by printing their front pages in gold and calling him a Napoleon of charity. After he witnessed a parade of tens of thousands of barefoot children, who came to pay him homage, he sent a telegram to the United States asking for a prompt delivery of clothing and one million pairs of shoes. These emergency supplies arrived in time to avert horrendous privation before another harsh winter. When he ran out of money in 1920, and the need for food was growing month by month, he organized a fundraising dinner in New York. Each of the one thousand guests paid $1,000, and received a meal consisting of only bread and cocoa - a typical ration for a Polish child in those days - worth only a few cents. That evening alone, the future American president collected one million dollars (20 million dollars in 2007) and saved additional tens of thousands of lives. In the 1920s, the largest and most festive celebrations of the Fourth of July, outside of the United States, took place in dozens of Polish cities, towns and villages.

When another tragic war broke out in 1939, the then ex-President  Hoover, together with his old friends and associates from the ARA, organized another trans-Atlantic relief effort. For several years it succeeded in feeding millions of Europeans, especially children and the elderly in Poland. Hoover led the Commission for Polish Relief, which alleviated the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Polish people, and included the delivery of food to Nazi-controlled Jewish ghettos.

After WW II,  Hoover co-founded two major world humanitarian organizations: UNICEF and CARE. Also, his name was inseparably connected with the monumental shipment of millions of tons of aid to  Poland, as well as other European countries by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). For the next thirty years, Poles born between 1946 and the 1960s benefited immensely from their relief efforts. For decades, Hoover inspired hope where there had been despair and made life bearable for countless thousands.

Hoover's contributions were largely forgotten due to the political conditions in Poland after 1945, but it changed significantly after a tour of this exhibition throughout the country. It opened first at the Royal Castle in Warsaw on November 11, 2004, Polish Independence Day. After that it was invited to other major Polish cities, and, in 2006, it was brought to Stanford University - Hoover's Alma Mater, and the organizer of the exhibition, curated by Zbigniew Stanczyk.

Many of the items in this exhibition, from the Hoover Institution Archives and the Polish National Archives, are being shown publicly for the first time and illustrate Herbert Hoover's commitment to the survival and continued existence of Poland throughout his life as a private citizen, statesman, President, and, above all, a dedicated humanitarian. With close ties between Poland and the United States, the memory of Hoover's contribution only strengthens the feeling of mutual confidence and optimism.

During the interwar period Herbert Hoover was well known to virtually every Pole. Just as Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish hero of  America's fight for independence, was granted U.S. citizenship in 1783, so too was  Hoover granted honorary citizenship - a first for Poland - by the Polish Republic in 1922 for his mobilization of relief efforts. The sculptor Xavery Dunikowski created a monument dedicated to Hoover and the American people. Unveiled in 1922, it was located on one of the most prominent squares in Warsaw, which was also renamed after him. Under Poland's communist regime (1945-1989), the square was neglected and its name removed. In 1992, however, its prewar name, Skwer Hoovera, was restored.

As a result of this exhibition, Polish authorities are now restoring the monument as a symbol of American friendship, charity and compassion.