Wladyslaw Bartoszewski
Władysław Bartoszewski ( [vwaˈdɨswaf bartɔˈʃɛfskʲi] ; born February 19, 1922 in Warsaw ; † April 24, 2015 ibid) was a Polish historian , publicist and politician .
Life
During the Second World War he joined the resistance against the German occupation of Poland . In September 1940 he was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp as a prisoner with the number 4427 and released seriously ill in April 1941. Jan Karski introduced him to Zofia Kossak in 1942 . He then became a leading activist in the Żegota committee founded by Kossak , a Christian-Jewish community association that saved around 75,000 Jews. In 1944 he took part in the Warsaw Uprising .
After the war, Bartoszewski which closed the Polish People's Party (Polish People's Party, PSL) to which only legal opposition party against the domination of the then Stalinist oriented Communists . From the beginning of 1946 he worked for a short time as a journalist for the PSL party newspaper Gazeta Ludowa , but was targeted by the Polish State Security and spent a total of six years in prison from November 1946 to April 1948 and from December 1949 to August 1954. In 1955 he was rehabilitated and was able to work as a historian and publicist.
He studied Polish studies , between 1941 and 1944 at the Tajny Uniwersytet Warszawski , which worked underground, and after the war before the arrest and after the release between 1958 and 1962 at the University of Warsaw .
Bartoszewski wrote several historical works that dealt with the Poles' reaction to the Holocaust .
In 1980 Bartoszewski became involved in the Solidarność trade union . After martial law was imposed , he was arrested again in 1981. Thanks to the help of a family friend, he was rescued. In the years that followed, Bartoszewski was visiting professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich , KU Eichstätt and the University of Augsburg . From 1990 to 1995 he was the Polish Ambassador to Vienna , appointed by President Lech Wałęsa . In 1995 he took over the post of Foreign Minister in the government of Józef Oleksy , but resigned when Aleksander Kwaśniewski was elected President. From June 2000 to September 2001 he was again Poland’s Foreign Minister, this time in the government of Jerzy Buzek .
In 2003 Bartoszewski was the patron of the XI. Forum of the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft in Wroclaw, with which a German literary society presented itself in Poland for the first time in order to promote the idea of a center for persecuted arts , a "contemporary form of remembrance work", according to Wladyslaw Bartoszewski. He considered this form of a “center” to be “politically correct and necessary”. He had offered to give the opening speech if it was realized. The Center for Persecuted Arts has existed since the beginning of 2015 in the building of the Solingen Art Museum .
On January 27, 2005, on January 27, 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Bartoszewski gave a highly acclaimed speech during the commemorative event there.
In the 2007 parliamentary election campaign , Bartoszewski took a stand for the opposition civic platform PO . During an election campaign appearance , he gave a speech in which he accused the ruling PiS party of destroying Poland's reputation in the world, and he also accused the diplomats appointed by the government of being “amateur diplomats”. He emphasized that he was now 85 years old and wanted to die in a free Poland. This speech became known beyond the borders of Poland. From November 2007 he was State Secretary and Foreign Policy Advisor to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk . Bartoszewski should take special care of Polish-German and Polish-Jewish relations. In this function he was very critical of the planned center against displacement in Berlin . A dialogue with the Germans about history will be sought, said Bartoszewski shortly after his appointment.
In an interview for Gazeta Wyborcza on August 13, 2009, he said at the end:
"If someone had told me, 60 years ago, when I was crouching in the roll call area of the Auschwitz concentration camp, that I would have Germans, citizens of a democratic and friendly country, as friends, I would have taken them for a fool."
From 2009, Bartoszewski was also the patron of GFPS Polska, the Polish partner association of the GFPS - community for student exchanges in Central and Eastern Europe , which promotes understanding between Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Belarus through exchange programs and other events. He was also a member of the international award committee of the Adalbert Foundation .
Bartoszewski remained active despite his old age. On April 19, 2015, he gave a speech on the 72nd anniversary of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto . On the day of his death, 93-year-old Bartoszewski wrote the text of his speech at the German-Polish government meeting in the morning, and he died that afternoon. He was buried on May 4, 2015 in the Powązki military cemetery (in Polish : Cmentarz Wojskowy na Powązkach ) in the presence of Presidents Joachim Gauck and Bronisław Komorowski .
Publications (selection)
Bartoszewski published over 40 books and 1200 articles in different languages. The subjects of his works are mostly the Second World War and the Holocaust ; he also wrote frequently about relations between Poles, Jews and Germans. The following list has been limited to the first publication date and title, a detailed list can be found in the Polish Wikipedia entry.
Fonts - Polish
- 1962 Konspiracyjne Varsaviana poetyckie 1939–1944: zarys informacyjny
- 1966 Organizacja małego sabotażu "Wawer" w Warszawie (1940–1944)
- 1967 Ten jest z Ojczyzny mojej. Polacy z pomocą Żydom 1939–1945 (with Zofia Lewinówna)
- 1967 Warszawski pierścień śmierci 1939–1944
- 1970 Kronika wydarzeń w Warszawie 1939–1949 (with Bogdan Brzeziński and Leszek Moczulski )
- 1974 Ludność cywilna w Powstaniu Warszawskim. Prasa, druki ulotne i inne publikacje powstańcze I – III
- 1974 1859 dni Warszawy (with Aleksander Gieysztor )
- 1979 Polskie Państwo Podziemne
- 1983 Los Żydów Warszawy 1939–1943. W czterdziestą rocznicę powstania w getcie warszawskim
- 1984 Jesień nadziei: warto być przyzwoitym
- 1984 Dni walczącej stolicy. Kronika Powstania Warszawskiego
- 1985 Metody i Praktyki Bezpieki w pierwszym dziesięcioleciu PRL (under the pseudonym Jan Kowalski )
- 1986 Syndykat zbrodni (under the pseudonym "ZZZ")
- 1987 Na drodze do niepodległości
- 1988 Warto być przyzwoitym. Szkic do pamiętnika
- 1990 Warto być przyzwoitym. Teksty osobiste i nieosobiste
- 2001 Ponad podziałami. Wybrane przemówienia i wywiady - lipiec-grudzień 2000
- 2001 Wspólna europejska odpowiedzialność. Wybrane przemówienia i wywiady, styczeń – lipiec 2001
- 2005 Moja Jerozolima, mój Izrael. Władysław Bartoszewski w rozmowie z Joanną Szwedowską (with Andrzej Paczkowski )
- 2006 Władysław Bartoszewski: wywiad-rzeka (with Michał Komar )
- 2006 Dziennik z internowania. Jaworze December 15, 1981 to April 19, 1982
- 2010 O Niemcach i Polakach. Wspomnienia. Prognozy. Nadzieje (lit .: About Germans and Poles. Memories. Forecasts. Hopes), ISBN 978-83-08-04422-3
- 2010 I była dzielnica żydowska w Warszawie (lit .: It was a Jewish quarter in Warsaw; with Marek Edelman )
Fonts in German translation
- 1967 The Polish underground press from 1939 to 1945
- 1969 The death ring around Warsaw 1939–1944 . Arranged: Wanda Symonowicz u. Halina Zawadzka.
- 1983 The Warsaw Ghetto as it really was. Testimony from a Christian . With e. Introduction by Stanisław Lem u. Photo documents, ISBN 978-3-596-30412-7
- 1983 Fall of Hope: It Pays to Be Decent. With e. Nachw. Ed. by Reinhold Lehmann
- 1986 Learn from history? Essays and speeches on the war and post-war history of Poland. Preface by Stanisław Lem . From d. Polish. by Nina Kozlowski u. Jens Reuter.
- 1987 We are united by shed blood. Jews and Poles in the Time of the Final Solution . Red., Ed. And Translated by Nina Kozlowski (first 1970)
- 1990 Poles and Jews during the "Final Solution"
- 1995 It Pays to Be Decent , ISBN 978-3-451-04449-6
- 2000 No peace without freedom. A contemporary witness at the end of the century. With a foreword by Hans Koschnick . From the polish. trans. by Nina Kozlowski, ISBN 978-3-789-06936-9
- 2002 German-Polish relations - yesterday, today and tomorrow. Foreword by Gerhard von Graevenitz.
- 2005 And tear the hatred out of our souls , ISBN 978-838-665318-8
- 2015 Mein Auschwitz , Schöningh Verlag, ISBN 978-3-506-78119-2
Awards and honors (selection)
- 1965 Righteous Among the Nations
- 1981 Honorary Doctorate from the University of London
- 1982/83 Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
- 1983 Herder Prize , Vienna
- 1984 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Baltimore
- Bartoszewski has made a special contribution to the German-Polish reconciliation and was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1986 ; the laudation was given by Hans Maier .
- In 1991 Bartoszewski was awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by Richard von Weizsäcker . In the same year he was made an honorary citizen of Israel.
- 1995 Large Golden Decoration on Ribbon for Services to the Republic of Austria
- 1995 Romano Guardini Prize
- In 1996 he was awarded the Heinrich Brauns Prize and Heinrich Heine Prize from the city of Düsseldorf .
- In 1997 Bartoszewski received the Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany . Immediately after his appointment as Foreign Minister, he gave a widely acclaimed speech in the German Bundestag . In it he spoke of a "new Germany" that has come to terms with the past positively.
- In 1997 he received the St. Liborius Medal for Unity and Peace from the Archdiocese of Paderborn .
- 1997 Prime Minister gave him Erwin Teufel , the Medal of Merit of the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg .
- In 2001 Bartoszewski received honorary academic citizenship from the University of Augsburg .
- 2001 Commander with Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary
- On September 3, 2001, Johannes Rau awarded him the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
- In 2002 he received the Humanism Prize of the German Classical Philology Association and the Eugen Kogon Prize .
- 2002 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Warsaw
- 2002 International Bridge Prize
- 2007 Jan Nowak Jeziorański Prize from the US Embassy
- In 2007 he was awarded the International Adalbert Prize in Bratislava by the Slovak President.
- In 2008 Bartoszewski received the first European Sinti and Roma Civil Rights Award, endowed with 15,000 euros .
- 2008 Awarded the Adam Mickiewicz Prize for services to German-French-Polish cooperation
- 2008 Awarding of the Citizens' Prize of the City of Kassel Glass of Reason
- 2008 Prize of the German Society. V . for services to German and European unification.
- In 2009 Bartoszewski received the undoped Kaiser Otto Prize from the city of Magdeburg.
- In 2009 he was appointed Commander of the Legion of Honor .
- In 2009, Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers of the Brauweiler Abbey honored him with the "Richeza Prize" of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for his outstanding contribution to understanding and reconciliation between Germans and Poles.
- 2012 Order of the White Double Cross 2nd class
- 2012 honorary citizen of Krakow
- 2013 Elie Wiesel Award, issued by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- 2014 Medal for special services to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in a united Europe and the world
- 2014 honorary membership in the Weimarer Dreieck eV association
- 2014 Bavarian Order of Merit
Web links
- German-language information on Władysław Bartoszewski, as well as publications and initiatives in his memory
- Literature by and about Władysław Bartoszewski in the catalog of the German National Library
- Publications by and about Władysław Bartoszewski at Litdok East Central Europe / Herder Institute (Marburg)
- Władysław Bartoszewski Representative of the Polish Prime Minister for International Affairs
- Władysław Bartoszewski - Blog (Polish)
- Speech to the German Bundestag on April 28, 1995
- Speech by the former Polish Foreign Minister Władysław Bartoszewski on the occasion of the memorial event for Sinti and Roma prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Berlin, May 16, 2004
- Speech at the opening of an exhibition showing original construction plans of the Auschwitz concentration camp for the first time in Germany, Berlin, February 2009
- Deutschlandfunk (DLF) Cologne: Cultural Issues April 5, 2009, 17.05–17.30: Freedom and Responsibility. Weimar speech on Europe's democracies
- Contemporary witness report on arte.tv
- Interview (September 2014, sueddeutsche.de)
- Audio recordings with Władysław Bartoszewski in the online archive of the Austrian Mediathek (interviews and lectures)
References and comments
- ↑ bbc.co.uk : Cash crisis threat to Auschwitz. January 26, 2009 (accessed December 21, 2009)
- ↑ Rafał Wnuk: The "Columbus Generation". Reflections on a collective biography. In: The Polish Home Army: History and Myth of the Armia Krajowa since World War II. Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, p. 783.
- ^ Bernhard Vogel : Laudation - Awarding of the Kaiser Otto Prize 2009 to Władysław Bartoszewski. Magdeburg, May 7, 2009.
- ^ Władysław Bartoszewski . Europejska Akademia Dyplomacji. Archived from the original on February 19, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ↑ haGalil onLine 28-01-2005
- ^ Text of Bartoszewski's speech, p. 156 f. (English)
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento from January 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Adalbert Foundation
- ↑ DER SPIEGEL May 2, 2015 p. 143
- ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Władysław Bartoszewski
- ↑ FAZ.net / Hans-Jürgen Döscher : Review (February 2, 2015)
- ↑ see here ( Memento from August 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Text of the acceptance speech by Bartoszewski and the laudation by Hans Maier (PDF file; 227 kB)
- ^ Władysław Bartoszewski: Representative of the Polish Prime Minister for international issues on the website of the Federal Foreign Office , seen on April 17, 2013.
- ↑ "The Polish-German relations belong to the world of miracles" , Wladyslaw Bartoszewski in conversation with Sabine Adler in an interview the week of Germany radio on April 14, 2013, seen on April 17, 2013.
- ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF file; 6.6 MB)
- ^ University of Augsburg: Honorary Citizens, Senators and Members of the University of Augsburg. Retrieved February 22, 2011.
- ^ Official website of the European Sinti and Roma Civil Rights Prize
- ↑ European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma for Polish State Secretary Władisław Bartoszewski. Federal Foreign Office, December 17, 2008, accessed April 6, 2011 .
- ^ Adam Mickiewicz Prize 2008.
- ↑ Super User: 2008 - Deutsche Gesellschaft eV Accessed December 11, 2017 (German).
- ^ Intervention de François Fillon, lors de la remise des insignes de commandeur de la Légion d'honneur à Wladislaw Bartoszewski (ambassade de France à Varsovie) ( Memento of May 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ press release. No. 137/2014. State Chancellery Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, July 18, 2014, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
- ^ Verein Weimarer Dreieck eV ( Memento from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Bartoszewski, Wladyslaw |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish historian, publicist and politician |
DATE OF BIRTH | February 19, 1922 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Warsaw |
DATE OF DEATH | April 24, 2015 |
Place of death | Warsaw |