Jerzy Smurzyński
Jerzy Smurzyński (born May 3, 1928 in Łomża ) is a Polish radio journalist, researcher on Nazi war crimes and honorary citizen of the city of Łomża.
During the German occupation of Poland , he lived with his parents and attended secret middle school classes in a teacher's apartment. His father owned a grocery store before the war and his mother was a bank clerk.
On July 15, 1943, he left home early in the morning and went to class. This saved his life, as his parents were arrested by the Gestapo on the same day and immediately executed in the forest near the village of Jeziorko together with fifty other representatives of the Łomża intelligentsia. This action was carried out by a task force appointed by Gauleiter Erich Koch under the command of officer Müller. In the autumn of 1944, Sonderkommando 1005 dug up the bodies of the murdered and burned them at the stake in order to erase the traces of the crime.
Jerzy Smurzyński survived the war in hiding in the villages around Łomża. He joined the Polish Home Army .
After the war he passed his school leaving examination in Inowrocław . For political reasons (as a former Home Army fighter) he was not allowed to study at the Warsaw School of Commerce. He moved to his family in Ostrołęka , where he became a physics and chemistry teacher at the grammar school.
On October 8, 1949, he began to study chemistry at the University of Warsaw , but had to drop out after two years and taught chemistry at the Reytan Lyceum in Warsaw.
In 1952 he passed the pedagogical examination at the University of Pedagogy in Łódź as an external student and received full teaching authorization. For health reasons, however, he had to forego an educational career and since then has been writing handbooks.
In 1962 he began his employment as a journalist in the state radio and television. After the introduction of martial law in Poland on December 13, 1981, he was dismissed without notice as an active member of the Association of Polish Journalists and prematurely retired.
As the only survivor of the Jeziorko massacre in 1943, he has since dealt with the documentation of the mass execution on July 15, 1943. In cooperation with the Main Commission for Research into Nazi War Crimes, he obtained the designation of the Jeziorko Forest Cemetery as a place of national remembrance.
He wrote two books about the massacre and its victims. He was made an honorary citizen of the city of Łomża. He was also awarded the Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland in silver and gold.
See also: Jeziorko Forest Cemetery
Works
- Jerzy Smurzyński: " Czarne Lata na Łomżyńskiej Ziemi " (Black Years of the Łomża Country), Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Ziemi Łomżyńskiej, Warszawa-Łomża 1997, ISBN 83-902985-2-X
- Jerzy Smurzyński: " Jeziorko - historia leśnej polany " (Jeziorko - the story of a forest clearing), Starostwo Powiatowe w Łomży, Łomża-Warszawa 2007, ISBN 978-83-925482-0-1
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Smurzyński, Jerzy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish radio journalist and historian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 3, 1928 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Łomża |