Today is the 101st birthday anniversary of Professor Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz, a soldier of the Home Army, a prisoner of the German concentration camp Stutthof, an outstanding historian and one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz was born on 22 January 1923 in Warsaw, in an educated family. His father Władysław was editor of “Gazeta Ludowa” until 1939. The young Krzysztof graduated from the Prince Józef Poniatowski Gymnasium and Secondary School in Żoliborz, passing the underground matriculation exam in June 1940.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, he was sworn into the Union of Armed Struggle and then was a soldier of the Home Army’s “Baszta” regiment (communications company). During the occupation, he graduated from the non-commissioned officer school and officer cadet school. He became a member of the socialist youth organisation “Płomienie” (Flames) and a collaborator of the Council to Aid Jews “Żegota”. At the same time, he studied history at underground classes at the University of Warsaw.
As a result of an agent denunciation, he and his entire family were arrested by the Gestapo on 13 April 1944 and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. After a few weeks, on 24 May, he was deported to Stutthof Concentration Camp, from where he finally managed to escape during the evacuation of the camp on foot.
After the Red Army entered Poland, he belonged to the Union of Independent Socialist Youth and the Polish Socialist Party, opposing the unification efforts of the PPS and PPR. From November 1945, he was an assistant at the Institute of History of the University of Warsaw, an employee of the Institute of National Remembrance at the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, and a participant in the Crooked Circle Club.
From 1950 to 1954, he was a curator at the Historical Museum of the City of Warsaw, after which he was employed at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 1955. In 1984 he was appointed full professor. He has published 22 books and 420 scientific papers.
During his professional activity, he was a member of the Scientific Council of the Jewish Historical Institute, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland and a member of the Council for the Protection of Remembrance of Struggle and Martyrdom.
From 1989, he became involved again in the reactivated PPS. Together with his mother, Janina Dunin-Wąsowicz, he was awarded the medal “Righteous Among the Nations”. In 2007, he received the Commander’s Cross with a Star of the Rebirth of Poland for his heroic attitude in rescuing Jews during the German occupation from President Lech Kaczyński.
He died on 9 May 2013 and was buried in the Powązki Military Cemetery.