HEROES OF THE TIME OF PEACE
WOJCIECH BOBROWSKI
PAWEŁ GRABOWSKI - a doctor. He left Warsaw for Podlasie to Nowa Wola, where He founded a Home Hospice of Prophet Elias which takes care of the terminally ill at their homes, brings help to incurably ill living on poor village areas. At present from initiative there is going to be a stationary hospice. Dr. Grabowski manages a team of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and also cooperates with a group of students form a Medical Univeristy in Białystok. His attitude is worth following.
MIROSŁAWA GRUSZCZYK runs rural household in Rudołtowice near Pszczyna. She gave accommodation to sisters Tamara and Maria – Ukrainian women who had been hit by a car. The women were physically disabled after their stay in hospital, without money, work or flats. Mrs. Mirosława decided to take care of the women for about 5 months. Her support is still going on although Maria and Tamara returned home. This deed has been acknowledged as unusual.
S. MICHAELA RAK – a member of the Congregation of Sisters of Merciful Jesus. For many years she has run a Hospice of St. Kamil in Gorzów Wielkopolski. Next she began a mission of organizing the first stationary hospice in Lithuania. The Hospice of Bl. Fr. Michał Sopoćko has functioned in Vilnus since 2009, having 14 vacancies at disposal. Its patients are both Poles and Lithuanians. S. Michaela takes care of people suffering from cancers, helps the bedridden, gives them a possibility to die in dignity. Her important social initiative ended with a success.
An award named Jan Rodowicz ‘Anoda’ is granted for ‘heroism of the time of peace’. Its initiator was the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising in 2011, and its patronage is held by the President of the Republic of Poland
A few days ago the Award named Jan Rodowicz was granted for the eighth time and laureates were proclaimed on 31 March 2019 in the biggest museum hall ‘Pod Liberatorem’, above which there is a model of an American air fighter of the same name.
One of the generation
Before 1939 Jan Rodowicz ‘Anoda’ was a student of a Junior High School named Stefan Batory in Warsaw which he graduated during a conspiracy. He was also a scout and later an activist in ‘Gray Ranks’. The whole time of war occupation was for ‘Anoda’ further studies, work in the Plants of Philips Radio (hence his nickname) and a growing fight with the German occupant, and also participation in the most dangerous military actions, like defending his school mate Janek Bytnar from the hands of Gestapo (an action at Arsenal). During the uprising he was fighting in Wola district where he was severely wounded on 9 August. Not earlier than after a month did he return to his army division (company ‘Ruda’ in the ‘Zośka’ battalion. Being wounded for the second time, I was evacuated by a pontoon onto the right bank of the Vistula river and for a few months I was given treatment in a hospital in Otwock. The postwar years were his studies at the Warsaw Polytechnics and work on creating an archive of the battalion ‘Zośka’. ‘Anoda’ was also a participant of the anticommunist resistance movement. He was arrested by Stalin’s apparatus of terror on 24 December 1948 (on the Christmas Eve) in his mother’s flat. At the last moment she handed him Christmas wafer. Later there were 14 days of quest – like on the 14th station of the Road of the Cross – finished with the martyr death of a hero in a communist prison. Beside his heroic life, what was important for him was his attitude full of sacrifice towards people around him. Thanks to his openness and constant readiness to bring help Jan Rodowicz was surrounded by love or friendliness of everybody whom he had met. He deserves a monument in our hearts – and it is a rewards of his name.
Two moments of reflection
Not every generation of young Poles was lucky to have such examples as the current generation has examples of soldiers of the Warsaw Uprising. Jacek Kuroń, a creator of ‘communist scouting’ ordered the youth to take an examples of such people as gen. Karol Świerczewski ‘Walter’. Whereas that man betrayed his homeland in 1920, fighting against it on the Soviet side. On the last days of the Second World War in a battle at Budziszyn he sent thousands of new mercenary soldiers of the 2nd Army of the Polish Army exposing them to be killed by the tanks of the SS division. We do not know whether he did it through his commanding dilettantism, alcoholism or he was ordered to do so by his Soviet superiors. Two whole generations had to pass and the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising had to be founded so that we could direct the eyes and hearts of young Poles towards real heroes. However, not completely. Danuta Siedzikówna, a female equivalent of ‘Anoda’, has just stopped being a patron of the Warsaw street. It was decided so by liberal political parties and the authorities of Warsaw. The Award named Jan Rodowicz is one of many social initiatives of the Museum. Among recently realized ones, we should distinguish a film ‘Courier’ – about Jan Nowak-Jeziorański. Older readers of ‘Niedziela’ know Nowak-Jeziorański from his function as a director of the Polish Radio Station Free Europe, which he held in the years 1951 – 76, but at the times of the war occupation he was a special emissary between the emigration government and command of the National Army. The film is interesting, with fast action, although a bit jewelized – real war fates of this Polish officer were really interesting enough. If the Museum was able to assure that the creator of a story about the Polish hero would be a decent man! Władysław Pasikowski, a creator of the ‘Courier’ directed ‘Aftermath’ six years ago – a film which is ‘the Himalayas’ of the anti-Polish lie. Entrusting him directing that film made the motto of Władysław Bartoszewski fictional that ‘it is worth being decent’. If one is not so, social money can be used to realize the images about Jan Nowak-Jeziorański and Ryszard Kukliński. So, why should one be decent?
Translated by Aneta Amrozik
Niedziela 16/2019 (21 IV 2019)