Zdzisław Zakrzewski

Zdzisław Zakrzewski
Zdzisław Zakrzewski
Born	11 November 1919; Lwów, Second Polish Republic
Died	21 March 2013; Hayward, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Polish University in Exile ; Royal Institute of Technology
Occupation	Optical engineer, philanthropist, banker, a veteran of Poland's defensive struggle in September 1939, and a social and political activist
Spouse(s)	Zofia Witwicka
Awards	Polonia Restituta

Last updated May 31, 2019

Zdzisław Zakrzewski, of the Jastrzębiec coat of arms (11 November 1919 in Lwów – 21 March 2013 in Hayward, California) was a Polish-American optical engineer, philanthropist, banker, a veteran of Poland's defensive struggle in September 1939,^[1] and a social and political activist.

Hayward is a city located in Alameda County, California in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. With a 2014 population of 149,392, Hayward is the sixth largest city in the Bay Area and the third largest in Alameda County. Hayward was ranked as the 37th most populous municipality in California. It is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area by the US Census. It is located primarily between Castro Valley and Union City, and lies at the eastern terminus of the San Mateo–Hayward Bridge. The city was devastated early in its history by the 1868 Hayward earthquake. From the early 20th century until the beginning of the 1980s, Hayward's economy was dominated by its now defunct food canning and salt production industries.

California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second-most populous, after New York City. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.

Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build, and test machines, systems, structures and materials to fulfill objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. The word engineer is derived from the Latin words ingeniare and ingenium ("cleverness"). The foundational qualifications of an engineer typically include a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline, or in some jurisdictions, a master's degree in an engineering discipline plus four to six years of peer-reviewed professional practice and passage of engineering board examinations.

Early life

Zdzisław Zakrzewski graduated from the Classical Gymnasium of St. Jadwiga and studied engineering at the Lwów Polytechnic Institute. He was an altar boy, a boy scout, an activist of the Lwów chapter of the All-Polish Youth and the "Brotherly Aid" Association, as well as a member of the "Ikaria" Student Fraternity.

Lviv Polytechnic National University is the largest scientific university in Lviv. Since its foundation in 1816, it has been one of the most important centres of science and technological development in Central Europe. In the interbellum period, the Polytechnic was one of the most important technical colleges in Poland, together with the Warsaw Polytechnic. Today the University is also the National Defense University.

In September 1939, after the Germans and Soviets invaded Poland, Zakrzewski, along with a group of friends, left Lwów with the intention of searching for and joining the Polish armed forces. They fell into the hands of Ukrainian nationalists who wanted to shoot them. Afterwards, they were captured by the Bolsheviks, but – having managed to break out of jail – escaped to Romania, where they were interned. Soon, they escaped the Romanian internment camp and attempted to make their way to the West via Yugoslavia and Greece, where they snuck onto a ship which carried them to France.

The Invasion of Poland, known in Poland as the September Campaign or the 1939 Defensive War, and in Germany as the Poland Campaign (Polenfeldzug), was an invasion of Poland by Germany that marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September following the Molotov–Tōgō agreement that terminated the Soviet and Japanese Battles of Khalkhin Gol in the east on 16 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty.

In France, Zakrzewski enrolled in a cadet school, joined the Podhale Sharpshooters' Brigade, and fought against the Germans at Narvik in Norway and in France in 1940. He was captured by the Nazis, but, once again, he escaped their grip and managed to sneak into unoccupied (Vichy) France. His group then boarded a yacht and headed for British-controlled Gibraltar. Unfortunately, as a result of a storm, the vessel crashed on the Spanish coast. The Spaniards, suspecting that they were communists, immediately arrested the Poles and incarcerated them in the Miranda del Ebro camp. After several escape attempts, a hunger strike, and Allied pressure, the Spanish authorities eventually released Zakrzewski and his friends, who made their way to Britain via Portugal.

In Great Britain

Once in Britain, Zakrzewski joined the air force and, for the remainder of the war, served in the RAF's 304th "Silesian Land" Bombing Squadron dedicated to Prince Józef Poniatowski, which pursued German U-Boats in the Atlantic Ocean.

No. 304 Polish Bomber Squadron was a Polish World War II bomber unit. It fought alongside the Royal Air Force under their operational Command and operated from airbases in the United Kingdom, serving from April 1941 as a bomber unit in RAF Bomber Command, from May 1942 as an anti-submarine unit in RAF Coastal Command and from June 1945 as a transport unit in RAF Transport Command.

Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski was a Polish leader, general, minister of war and army chief, who became a Marshal of the French Empire.

He ran the All-Polish Youth organization in the UK.

Zakrzewski twice organized aviator mutinies: first, in August 1944, to protest the lack of Allied assistance for the Warsaw Uprising, and again in June 1945, in response to the Allied decision to withdraw recognition from the legal Polish government (based in London) in favor of the communist Soviet puppet regime in Warsaw. After the war, he organized Polish students in Western Europe and helped obtain scholarships for them to study at Catholic universities, particularly in Belgium.

The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation, in the summer of 1944, by the Polish underground resistance, led by the Home Army, to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army temporarily halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to raze the city in reprisal. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II.

Continuing his education at the Polish University in Exile and the Royal Institute of Technology, he obtained a Master's degree in engineering with a specialization in optical engineering.

The United States

In 1949, he moved to the United States and began working in the national defense sector, including on such projects as the hydrogen bomb and spy satellites. The final project he was involved in was the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars"), focusing especially on SDI's mirror component.

Politically and philosophically, Zakrzewski was associated with the conservative movement. He also animated Polish-American social and political life in the San Francisco Bay Area and eventually became the director of the Northern California Division of the Polish American Congress. In 1974, he also founded the Polish American Federal Credit Union (POLAM) in California, an institution he continued to lead until his death. Social activism

Zakrzewski established several charitable organizations, including "Help to Poland" and the Tadeusz Ungar Foundation. He hosted a Polish-language radio program, edited the POLAM news bulletin, and authored numerous articles on social, political, and cultural issues. He also published a book O Polsce i Polakach [About Poland and the Poles] (Warsaw: Ronin, 1996).

During the 1970s, he supported the boy scout branch of the Committee to Defend Workers (KOR), an anti-communist dissident group in Soviet-occupied Poland, and "Solidarity" during the 1980s.

After the political transformation of 1989, he founded the Independent Research Team Foundation Fundacja Niezależny Zespół Badawczy, supported the "Self-Determination" Foundation Samostanowienie, and funded the Glaukopis scholarly historical journal. However, his charitable activism focused primarily on the post-Soviet zone, including the areas of Wilno/Vilnius, Lwów/Lviv, and Kazakhstan.

Notable accomplishments

Zakrzewski held many patents and wrote numerous scholarly articles on engineering.

He was the author of a political work: O Polsce i Polakach [About Poland and the Poles] (Warsaw: Ronin, 1996).^[2]

Awarded the Commander's Cross with the Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the Polish government.^[3]

Family

Zakrzewski's grandfather, Józef, was most likely murdered by the Soviets in Proskuriv (now Khmelnytski) during the "Polish Operation" of the NKVD.

His father, Wilhelm, was a Polish police officer in Lwów, had served in the Polish Legions during the First World War, and was a supporter of Józef Piłsudski. He was killed by the Soviets and his wife, Franciszka, died of tuberculosis in Siberia, after being deported from Lwów with her 2 daughters, Irena and Elida.

Zakrzewski married Zofia Witwicka, after a failed first marriage to Lidia Janina Durr. He was the father of seven children.

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References

External links

(in Polish) The passing of Zdzisław Zakrzewski
(in Polish) Zdzisław Zakrzewski, R.I.P.
(in Polish) Official obituary
In Memoriam: Richard (Zdzisław) Zakrzewski (1919-2013)

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[1] ttp://www.polishnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1007:struggle-for-the-historic-truth-about-september-1939-&catid=93:historiapolish-history&Itemid=329

[2] ttp://www.matras.pl/o-polsce-i-polakach-139762.html

[3] "Nekrolog śp. por. Zdzisława Ryszarda Zakrzewskiego - Urząd do Spraw Kombatantów i Osób Represjonowanych". web.archive.org. 2015-01-20. Retrieved 2019-05-17.

Zdzisław Zakrzewski
Born	11 November 1919 Lwów, Second Polish Republic
Died	21 March 2013 Hayward, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Polish University in Exile Royal Institute of Technology
Occupation	Optical engineer, philanthropist, banker, a veteran of Poland's defensive struggle in September 1939, and a social and political activist
Spouse(s)	Zofia Witwicka
Awards	Polonia Restituta