Izydor Gąsienica-Łuszczek

Izydor Gąsienica-Łuszczek
nation	Poland
birthday	March 29, 1912
place of birth	Zakopane ,  Austria-Hungary
date of death	5th October 1992
Place of death	Zakopane ,  Poland
Career
discipline	Nordic combined ski jumping cross-country skiing
society	TS Wisła Zakopane
End of career	1938
Medal table
National medals 1 × 4 × 3 ×
Participant in the Nordic Combined  Polish championships silver 1932 Zakopane singles gold 1933 Zakopane singles bronze 1934 Zakopane singles bronze 1935 Zakopane singles Participants in ski jumping  Polish championships silver 1932 Zakopane singles Participants in cross-country skiing  Polish championships silver 1931 Zakopane 5 × 10 km relay silver 1932 Zakopane 5 × 10 km relay bronze 1933 Zakopane 18 km

Izydor Gąsienica-Łuszczek (born March 29, 1912 in Zakopane , Galicia , Austria-Hungary , † October 5, 1992 ibid) was a Polish Nordic skier and concentration camp survivor.

Career

Sports career

Gąsienica-Łuszczek (first from right) with S. Marusarz (first from left) and B. Czech (second from right ) in 1935

After Gąsienica-Łuszczek was rejected by the Sokół Zakopane and SN PTT Zakopane ski clubs due to his slender stature, the manager of the Zakopan branch of the TS Wisła club, Franciszek Wagner , consented to the training at TS Wisła Zakopane . Its first successes came in the early 1930s. As a Nordic skier with a focus on Nordic Combined , his strengths were more in ski jumping than running. Nevertheless, he won his first national medal in December 1931 with the 5 × 10 km relay. In 1932 he was both Polish runner-up in ski jumping and in combination. In addition, he placed in the top five in numerous national and regional competitions. Although he had made hopes for a nomination for the Olympic Winter Games in 1932 with these achievements , he was not considered. In February 1933 Gąsienica-Łuszczek won his only championship title in Nordic Combined, ahead of the favored Bronisław Czech and Andrzej Marusarz . At the national level, he also took part in alpine skiing competitions, but did not win any medals.

After he took part in the military patrol of the Nordic World Ski Championships in 1930 and achieved eighth place, three years later he also took eighth place in the ski jumping competition of Bergiselschanze at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Innsbruck in 1933 . In the combination he came in 35th place, whereas in the 18 km cross-country skiing it was only 109th place. A year later he was only able to improve slightly in cross-country skiing over 18 kilometers and finished 101st at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Sollefteå in 1934 . He finished the combined competition in nineteenth place, in ski jumping he placed 24th.

At the Reich Ski Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1935, his strengths and weaknesses came to light again. While he finished the combined cross-country run in 113th place, he completed the combined jump run in twelfth place, so that it was enough for the 28th place in the total bill. A few weeks later Gąsienica-Łuszczek started at the Nordic World Ski Championships in 1935 in Vysoké Tatry , where he took 48th place in ski jumping after jumps on 53 and 50 meters with a fall.

He completed his last competition in 1938 as part of the Polish Ski Championships, where he was sixteenth in the ski jumping competition.

Prisoner in World War II

After his career he stayed connected to skiing and ran a ski repair workshop in Zakopane. During the occupation, this became the contact point for Poles who fled to Hungary. On February 23, 1940, Gąsienica-Łuszczka was arrested by the Gestapo and tortured in the Hotel Palace in Zakopane. He was then imprisoned in Nowotarska Prison and Montelupich Prison in Krakow , before being taken to Auschwitz concentration camp in June 1940 , where he was given the number 783. There he met his former sports colleague Bronisław Czech, among others . After the camp was evacuated, he was sent to the Sachsenhausen and Oranienburg camps. On May 2, 1945, the Americans rescued the transport with Gąsienica-Łuszczek and other prisoners.

burial

After his death in 1992 he was buried in the New Cemetery (Nowy Cmentarz w Zakopanem) in Zakopane .

Web links

Commons : Izydor Gąsienica-Łuszczek  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Izydor Gąsienica-Łuszczek in the database of wyniki-skoki.hostingasp.pl
• Izydor Łuszczek on historiawisly.pl (Polish)
• Poczet skoczków polskich: Izydor Gąsienica-Łuszczek - Narciarze nie łamcie nóg-łamcie narty ... on skijumping.pl (Polish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Iza: Skoczkowie, Którzy walczyli o wolną polskę. In: skokiokiemkobiet.pl. Retrieved August 12, 2019 (Polish).