August Agbola O'Browne

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August Agbola O'Browne (* 1895 in Nigeria ; † 1976 in Great Britain ) was a jazz musician and probably the only participant of African descent in the 1944 uprising during the Second World War in Warsaw, which was occupied by the German National Socialists .

Life

O'Browne, who was born in pre-colonial Nigeria , emigrated in 1922 to the then independent Republic of Poland for only four years . He quickly found his own apartment on Ulica Złota in the central Warsaw district of Wola and earned his living as a drummer for jazz music in various entertainment venues in the growing metropolis. After he had established himself as a jazz interpreter and had earned enough money as a wandering record seller, he married Olga Miechowicz, who was twenty years younger than him, and had his son Ryszard with her in 1928. A year later, his first daughter, Aleksandra, was born.

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939 , O'Browne stayed in Warsaw with his family. He took part both in 1939 on the side of the Polish Armed Forces in the defense of Warsaw and in 1944 in the battles of the Polish Home Army against the German Wehrmacht . As a partisan , he reportedly carried the code name “Ali” and was subordinate to the battalion “Iwo” during operations in the south of downtown Warsaw . He was also responsible for distributing the Polish-language underground press.

After the end of World War II, he joined the Association of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy in 1949 , a state-controlled war veterans association in the now formed People's Republic of Poland . In the same year O'Browne got a job in the culture department of the Warsaw city administration, but after a few years worked again as a drummer in various restaurants within Warsaw at banquets and weddings . In 1958 O'Browne emigrated to Great Britain with his family, and his second daughter Tatiana was born the following year.

The Polish Freedom and Peace Foundation plans to work with Polish jazz musicians and the Warsaw Rising Museum to erect a monument to O'Browne in the center of Warsaw.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Zbigniew Osiński: Powstaniec z Nigerii . In: Paweł Średziński u. Mamadou Diouf (Ed.): Afryka w Warszawie. Dzieje afrykańskiej diaspory nad Wisłą . FAI, Warsaw 2010, ISBN 978-83-62179-01-5 , pp. 97 .
  2. ↑ Ali, czyli jedyny zarnoskóry powstaniec warszawski. In: Gazeta Wyborcza. Retrieved October 12, 2015 .
  3. ↑ jest kolejny trop w historii o czarnoskórym powstańcu. In: Gazeta Wyborcza. Retrieved October 12, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Szeregowiec Ali. In: Gazeta Wyborcza. Retrieved October 12, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Memorial to African participants in the Warsaw Uprising. In: Radio Poland. Retrieved March 8, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME O'Browne, August Agbola
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ali
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-British jazz musician and fighter of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa)
DATE OF BIRTH 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Nigeria
DATE OF DEATH 1976
Place of death United Kingdom