Walentyna Janta-Połczyńska

Walentyna Janta-Połczyńska (née Stocker; 1 February 1913, Lemberg — 2 April 2020, New York City) was the last surviving member of the Polish government-in-exile during the Second World War, and a founder of the Polish wartime resistance radio station Świt (Dawn). A recipient of the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, she was a philanthropist and the centre of Polish-American culture in New York.

Early life

Walentyna Stocker was born in Lemberg in Austria-Hungary to Ludwik Stocker and Karolina Kochanowska. Her father was of English origin, whose family had a company prospecting for oil in eastern Poland.[1] She had a brother, Andrzej, and a sister, Krystyna.[2]

In 1938, Stocker travelled to London to study English and secretarial practice.[3] She was briefly married to a Polish navy officer, Wilhelm Pacewicz.[1]

War years

Stocker was hired by the Polish embassy in London soon after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. When the Polish government-in-exile was set up, she became the personal secretary to General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the prime minister in exile.[1] She organised (and was an announcer for) the secret Świt radio station, which had its headquarters at Bletchley, and broadcast to occupied Poland.

Jan Karski, an underground investigator, delivered some of the earliest reports of German atrocities against the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. In her role as translator, she prepared intelligence articles from them. During meetings of the Polish cabinet with foreign leaders (including Winston Churchill), she acted as interpreter.[1]

In 1943, Stocker's brother was captured by the NKVD and sent to Siberia. Thereafter, he joined the Polish 2nd Corps under Wladyslaw Anders, which was deported to Iran.[3] Stocker's sister and nephew died during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Her mother and brother survived the war.[2]

In 1945, Stocker joined the Polish Army's Women's Auxiliary Service and went to Frankfurt as an interpreter aiding Polish prisoners of war and survivors of concentration camps.[4]

Later life

In 1947, Stocker and her mother emigrated to the United States, first settling in Buffalo, New York.[5] She first found employment with an office for the Polish diaspora in Manhattan, after which she worked for the cosmetics company of Helena Rubinstein.[3]

She married Aleksander Janta-Połczyński, a poet and journalist, in 1949, and settled in Elmhurst, New York. Together with her husband, she established a bookstore in Manhattan, selling old books and maps of Poland. This, along with their home, became a centre for émigré Polish culture in the United States.[1] They hosted, among others, Czesław Miłosz and Zbigniew Herbert, as well as Charlie Chaplin and Vladimir Nabokov.[5]

From 1955 to 1958, Janta-Połczyńska worked for the Iraqi mission at the United Nations in New York City.[3] She was also active at the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America, a research organisation devoted to the study of modern Polish history.[1]

Between 1959–1961, Janta-Połczyńska worked successfully for the restoration of the Wawel Castle treasures (which had been evacuated at the start of the war) from Canada to Poland.[2]

After her husband's death in 1974,[2] Janta-Połczyńska donated much of their collections of maps, manuscripts, prints and historical documents to the National Library of Poland in Warsaw.[5]

In 2009, the National Library of Poland published a book of correspondence between Janta-Połczyńska and Jerzy Giedroyc.[4]

Janta-Połczyńska died at the Forest Hills hospital on 2 April 2020.[5]

Awards
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References
  1. Roberts, Sam (20 April 2020). "Walentyna Janta-Polczynska, Polish War Heroine, Dies at 107". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  2. "Walentyna Janta-Połczyńska". Wyborcza. 17 April 2020. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  3. Lachowicz, Teofil (23 November 2013). "Krzyż Oficerski Orderu Zasługi RP dla Walentyny Janta-Połczyńskiej". Kurier Plus (in Polish). p. 6. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  4. "W wieku 107 lat zmarła Walentyna Janta-Połczyńska, sekretarka gen. Sikorskiego" (in Polish). Biblioteka Narodowa (National Library of Poland). 3 April 2020. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  5. Maslanka, Wojtek (2 April 2020). "Nie żyje Walentyna Janta-Połczyńska". Nowy Dziennik (in Polish). Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  6. "Postanowienie Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej" (PDF). Monitor Polski (in Polish). 14 May 2014. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
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