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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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