Tomasz Strzembosz | |
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Born | Warsaw | September 11, 1930
Died | October 16, 2004 Warsaw, Poland | (aged 74)
Occupation | Historian |
Language | Polish |
Alma mater | Warsaw University |
Genre | Non-fiction |
Subject | World War II history |
Notable works | Rzeczpospolita podziemna |
Notable awards | Custodian of National Memory Prize |
Tomasz Strzembosz (11 September 1930 – 16 October 2004) was a Polish historian and writer who specialized in the World War II history of Poland. He was a professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Political Studies, in Warsaw; and, from 1991, at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Strzembosz was a resident of Warsaw, Poland. [1]
After World War II, Tomasz Strzembosz was persecuted by the Polish People's Republic government's Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (Security Office). In the mid-1950s, Stalinist Poland he was prevented from obtaining a master's degree and was repeatedly laid off from work.
Strzembosz was one of the few Polish People's Republic historians who refused to write Soviet-inspired falsehoods about Poland's history. His main areas of research included the history of the World War II Polish Underground State, with special emphasis on German-occupied Warsaw; the Polish partisan movement in the Kresy macroregion between 1939 and 1941, following the Soviet invasion of Poland; and the 1944–46 anti-communist resistance in Poland. [2]
In the 1980s, Strzembosz was an activist in the anti-communist Solidarity movement. In 1989–93, he was president of the Polish Scouting Association (photo).
Strzembosz authored a dozen books and over 100 scholarly papers. He also edited or reviewed over a dozen works by other authors. In 2002, he received Poland's Custodian of National Memory Prize. [2]
Tomasz Strzembosz was one of a set of triplets, with Roman-Catholic activist Teresa and law-professor-judge Adam Strzembosz, who served as chief justice of Poland's Supreme Court. Tomasz married Maria (Maryla) Dawidowska, sister of anti-Nazi underground scouting hero Maciej Aleksy Dawidowski.