Recollections of 1939-1949: from Politechnika Lwowska to Politechnika Gdańska.

I was born in the Polish city of Lwów on September 9, 1921. After high school, I enrolled in the School of Chemistry of Politechnica Lwowska (PL, or Lwów Polytechnic, or Lwów Institute of Technology) just before the WWII, but by the time my classes got underway, World War II has started and the Stalin’s Soviet Army did occupy Lwów. In 1939–1941, Stalin was the admirer and ally of Hitler. Together they partitioned Poland in 1939, and Stalin was supplying Germany with strategic materials and food up to June 1941. During the Soviet (1939–1941) occupation, Stalin has annexed Lwów, murdered over 20000 Polish officers (Katyn massacre), deported about 20% of Lwowians to Siberia, but the PL remained active. During the Nazi occupation (1941–44), Lwów was added back to the occupied Poland (so called General Gouvernement), 25 Polish Professors were murdered by Nazis, but again the PL somehow remained active (with exception of the school year 1941/42), while being renamed as “Technische Fachkurse”. During both occupations practically all the science and technology classes were taught in Polish language by Polish pre-WWII professors and assistants, with nearly pre-WWII programs. Thus, I was able to pass all courses toward the Ch.E. degree and to obtain a semiformal Diploma on March 29, 1944 (followed by my No.12 formal Polish Diploma from the Politechnika Slaska in Gliwice). While studying, I also worked in Weigl’s Institute, where I was breeding lice for the antityphus vaccine, and in-between I was participating in the anti-Soviet and the anti-Nazi Underground. Lwów was my home town with 650 years of Polish history, until the infamous ethnic cleansing of the Polish population in the years 1944–1947, as perpetrated by Stalin. This was done under the Yalta and Potsdam agreements, when the U.S.A. and England have abandoned their faithful Polish WWII Ally in favor of the imperial ambitions of Stalin, though at that time U.S.A. had already the atomic bomb and could have easily ‘persuaded’ Stalin, who as dictator was often more efficient and cruel than Hitler. To escape the Soviet-sponsored arrests, murders and deportations to Gulags after the 1944 re-occupation of Lwów, I moved to the central Poland, and then in April of 1945, I hitchhiked to the deserted Gdañsk, just a week after it fell to the advancing armies. All that I had was a knapsack with a big loaf of bread, which had to last for a long time, since Gdañsk was still burning and there were only few people and no stores or supplies. A fledgling Administration became organized in Sopot, and I was able to secure a position in Vol. 50 No. 2/2003