Olgierd Narkiewicz ( 1925 – 2010 )

Olgierd Narkiewicz was a descendant of Samogitian nobility, whose family seat was the ancestral property Szołpiany located in Taurage County of Lithuania that is well known to Polish readers of Sienkiewicz's " Trilogy ". It was the Narkiewicz family's habitat since sixteenth century. Olgierd Narkiewicz was born to Anna Umiastowska and Dr Adolf Narkiewicz, a well-to-do medical doctor. His father was a district physician, and for a time the chief physician in Vilnius. The initial education of Olgierd Narkiewicz began in Vilnius, where he attended the famous Gymnasium " Sigismund Augustus " before the Second World War. In 1939, before the outbreak of war, he passed to the third grade of high school. He did the so-called " small high school diploma, " during the Soviet occupation of Vilnius, obtaining the School Graduation Certificate on secret teaching courses. It is worth mentioning that among his teachers at that time were Prof. Stanislaw Hiller and Prof. Stanislaw Stomma. During WWII Narkiewicz participated in resistance movement. As he spoke five languages, he used this knowledge making reports from radio Allies communications for the underground press. Patriotic activity of the family led to repressions: his father-was arrested in 1941 by Soviets and died in prison in Gorky. Prof. Narkiewicz's uncle-Franciszek Umiastowski was killed in Katyn. In 1944, after re-occupation of Vilnius by the Red Army, Narkiewicz was forced to hide in a psychiatric hospital. With skilful simulation and kindness of Polish doctors, including then Associate Professor Janina Hurynowicz he managed to avoid being deported to the Soviet Union. After the war he was in the first group repatriated from Vilnius to Lodz, then to Lublin, where he started studying at the Faculty of Medicine of the newly established university – M. Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, where he scored the first year. In 1946 Narkiewicz decided to move and continue his medical studies at the Medical University of Gdamsk (MUG), and was accepted in the second year by Prof. Michał Reicher as a research student in the Department of Anatomy and continued medical studies in the years 1947–50 at the MUG Faculty of Medicine. During studies he obtained a position of younger assistant in the Department of Anatomy and participated in research on primates, the favourite object of his teacher. Since 1952 he worked as an assistant, receiving the Doctoral degree submitting the thesis entitled " Structure and variation of human splenius muscles ". …