Edward Szczepanik, Prime Minister of The Government
of the Polish Republic in Exile

Andrzej Wajda in 2012

Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski

Over the centuries Suwałki has produced a number of persons who have provided unique contributions to the fields of science, language, politics, religion, sports, visual arts and performing arts. A list of recent notable persons includes, but is not limited to:

• Jacob ben Moses Bachrach (1824-1896) - noted apologist of Rabbinic Judaism
• Marian Borzęcki (1889-1942) - lawyer, politician, lawyer, Chief of the State Police (Policja Państwowa)
• Jerzy Dąbrowski - Polish Army lieutenant colonel of cavalry, "Zagonczyk".
• Władysław Dąbrowski - a major in the cavalry of the Polish Army, "Zagonczyk" partisan commander in Vilnius in 1919-1920
• Zalman Gradowski (1910–1944), secret diarist at Auschwitz-Birkenau
• Josef Hassid (1923–1950), violinist
• Edmund Kessler - Colonel in the General Staff of the Army of the Russian Empire and the Polish Army
• Adam Koc (1891–1969), soldier, politician and journalist
• Maria Konopnicka (1842–1910), a poet, a novelist, a writer for children and youth, a translator, journalist and critic
• Hyman Liberman (1853-1923), first Jewish Mayor of Cape Town, serving from 1904 to 1907
• Mieczysław Mackiewicz (1880–1954), general
• Henryk Minkiewicz (1880–1940), General of the Polish Army, killed in the Katyn Massacre

a Polish socialist politician and a General of the Polish Army.^[1] Member of the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University and, simultaneously, Faculty of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts.^[1] Former commander of the Border Defence Corps, he was among the Polish officers murdered in the Katyń massacre.^[2]

• Leszek Aleksander Moczulski (1938-) – Poet
• Marion Mushkat (1909–1995), lawyer, colonel, judge, professor/specialist of international public law, military law and international affairs
• Aleksandra Piłsudska (1882–1963), wife of Józef Piłsudski and the Polish first lady
• Zygmunt Podhorski (1891–1960), general, cavalry commander
• Aleksander Putra (1888-1962) – social and political activist, member of Parliament Legislators in the Second Polish Republic, related to Krzysztof Putra
• Zvi Yosef Resnick (1841–1912), Rosh yeshiva (Dean of a rabbinical academy)
• Samuel Rosenthal (1837 - 1902), Jewish chess master and journalist
• Pinchas Sapir (1906–1975), Israeli politician, Minister of Finance
• Avraham Stern (1907-1942) – a Jewish paramilitary leader who founded and led Lehi (the "Stern Gang")
• Edward Szczepanik (1915–2005), economist and the last Polish Prime Minister in Exile (Polish: Premierzy II Rzeczypospolitej na wychodźstwie)

As an Officer (and eventually Major) in the Polish Army, he served with distinction in the Fifth Polish Artillery Regiment - notably in the battles of Monte Cassino, Ancona, and Bologna.^[3] In 1945 he received the Cross of the Valorous, and the following year was awarded the Silver Cross of Merit with Swords.^[3] He received a PhD in Economics in 1956 from the LSE.^[3] On April 7, 1986 he was chosen the successor of Kazimierz Sabbat to be the next Prime Minister of the Second Polish Republic in-exile (Polish: Premierzy II Rzeczypospolitej na wychodźstwie).^[4] He was awarded the title of Doctor of Economic Science – Honoris Causa in 1995 by the Warsaw School of Economics.^[5]

• Andrzej Wajda (1926-), film director

Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School" (active circa 1955 to 1963). He is known especially for a trilogy of war films: A Generation (1954), Kanał (1956) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958). Four of his movies have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Promised Land (1975), The Maids of Wilko (1979), Man of Iron (1981), and Katyń (2007).^[6][7]

• Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski (1849-1915) – painter of the Munich school, one of the most popular among Jozef Brandt and Władysław Czachórski
• Marcin Wojciechowski - Presenter and Journalist on Radio ZET

References