import unicodedata


def normalize_str(text):
    """
    Normalizes unicode input text (for example remove national characters)

    :param text: text to normalize
    :type text: unicode
    """
    # unicodedata NFKD doesn't convert properly polish ł
    trans_dict = {
        u'ł': u'l',
        u'Ł': u'L'
    }
    trans = dict((ord(k), ord(v)) for k, v in trans_dict.items())
    text = text.translate(trans)

    return unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', text).encode('ascii', 'ignore')