Mathwar/Marczewski Edward
Edward Marczewski
Edward Marczewski (* November 15th in Warsaw, † October 17th 1976 in Wroclaw)
File:MarczewskiEdward Marczewski
Life
With the German invasion of Poland in 1939 the intellectual life of the country was destroyed. Marczewski was visiting Lvov when it was occupied by the German army and here, as throughout Poland, intellectuals perished. Then Marczewski returned to Warsaw, but in the capital things were equally difficult. Mathematics lecturers at the University of Warsaw who died around this time included S Kwietniewski and A Lindenbaum in 1941 and S Saks murdered in November 1942. For much of the war Marczewski survived in Warsaw suffering great hardships. However, near the end of the war he was captured and sent to a labour camp in Breslau, as the Germans called the town, but Wroclaw to give it its Polish name.
In Wroclaw, Marczewski was a prisoner of the Germans while the Russian forces besieged the city. The German defenders of Wroclaw continued to resist even after the fall of Berlin. On 6 May 1945 the Russian forces captured Wroclaw and Marczewski was set free. Perhaps the rather surprising turn of events was that he decided to remain in Wroclaw and throw himself vigorously into the rebuilding of the university and educational system there.