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Wladyslaw Bartoszewski
(b. 1922)The initiator and moving force
behind Polish-German reconciliation, also dedicated to
Polish-Jewish
dialogue. Historian, publicist and politician.
In the years 1940-1941, Bartoszewski was an inmate at
the Auschwitz
concentration camp (camp number 4,427). In 1942, he
co-founded the
Council for Aid to Jews, "Zegota". During the years
1942-1944, he
participated in an underground Catholic organization, Front
Odrodzenia
Polski (FOP) (Front for the Rebirth of Poland). During the
years
1942-45, he worked for the Information Department of the
Office of
Information and Propaganda at the Home Army headquarters,
and in 1943-44
also for the Department of the Interior of the Delegation of
the Polish
Government in Exile in Poland (Prison and Jewish Affairs
Section). As a
Home Army soldier, he took part in the Warsaw Uprising in
1944.
After the war, he worked for the Main Commission for the
Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, and was also a
member of
"Mikołajczyk's" Polish Peasant Party, as well as editor of
the Gazeta
Ludowa (People's Gazette). He was persecuted by the
communist system and
was imprisoned twice, during the years 1946-1948 and
1949-1954. He was
charged with espionage, and spent over six years in prison.
In 1955, the
charges and sentence were declared to have been unfounded.
Later, he
often spoke out against the lawless behavior of the
communist
authorities by signing intellectuals' protest letters to the
government
and parliament, for example. He wrote for the Krakow weekly
Tygodnik
Powszechny and was later on its editorial board. During the
years
1972-82, he was secretary-general of the Polish PEN club. He
lectured on
modern history at the Catholic University in Lublin, worked
for Radio
Free Europe, and served as a professor for the "Flying
Universities". In
1980, he helped found the Committee for the Defense of Those
Persecuted
Because of Their Beliefs under the aegis of Solidarity.
During martial
law, he was interned in Jaworzno.
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From 1990 to 1995, he served as ambassador
of Poland to Austria, and from March 6 to December 22, 1995
was Poland's
foreign minister. From 1997 until 2001, when his term ended,
Bartoszewski was a senator in the Polish parliament. On July
1, 2000, he
was once again named foreign minister, a post which he held
until the
end of the Buzek government in October 2001. Since June
2001, he has
been the chairman of an organization committed to preserving
the memory
of past victims of wars and persecution, the Rada Ochrony
Pamieci Walk i
Meczenstwa. He is also the chairman of the International
Auschwitz
Counsil.
During the years 1983-1990, he was guest lecturer in
Munich,
Eichstaett and Augsburg. He has been granted many academic
titles,
including that of professor, which he was awarded in 1983 by
the
Bavarian government, as well as honorary doctorates in
philosophy and
humanities from four universities. In 1986, he was granted
the
Commander's Cross with a star of the Order of Polonia
Restituta by the
president of the Polish government in exile for his work in
the field of
Polish-Jewish affairs, among other things. In 1995, he was
awarded the
Order of the White Eagle. In 2001, he was awarded the Great
Cross of the
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his
contribution
towards the reconciliation of Germans, Poles and Jews.
He was one of the first Poles to receive the Righteous
among the
Nations of the World medal in Jerusalem in 1963. In 1991, he
was granted
honorary Israeli citizenship.
He has written approximately forty books and over 1,200
articles,
primarily about the German occupation. Among his most
important academic
contributions were his lecture at the Crooked Circle Club in
1961,
titled "Poles-Jews-Occupation", and his book published a few
years later
by the Znak publishing house, co-authored with Z. Lewinowna,
titled Ten
jest z ojczyzny mojej: Polacy z pomocš Żydom 1939-1945
(English title,
The Samaritans: Heroes of the Holocaust), about Poles who
aided Jews,
risking their own lives to do so.
(asw/cm)
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