After the collapse of the German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian Empires during World War I, a reunified independent Polish republic emerged in late 1918. While some Poles took advantage of the war’s end to emigrate to the United States, some Polish Americans such as Sophia Kusek moved to Poland. Poles’ pride in their new republic was demonstrated by the building of the Gdynia-America Line ocean liners and in the creation of their own currency, the Polish Marks. However, the Polish government’s decision to replace the marks with a new currency, the Zloty, reveals the economic challenges faced by many European countries in the early 1920s.