Ryszard Kaczorowski
Ryszard Kaczorowski (* November 26, 1919 in Białystok, † 10 April 2010 Smolensk, Russia) was a Polish politician. 19 June 1989 until 22 December 1990, he was the last President of Poland in exile.
Life
Kaczorowski came, as his predecessor Kazimierz Sabbat, from the ranks of the Polish Scouting movement. During the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in September 1939, he was the contact man between underground organization of the Boy Scouts " Grey Ranks " and the Polish Home Army. In July 1940 he was arrested by the Soviet secret police and sentenced to death in February 1941. After 100 days on death row in the judgment in 10 years Gulag prison was transformed into Kolyma. 1942 Kaczorowski was, like most prisoners Poland, Stalin, who approved the formation of a Polish army in the Soviet Union, pardoned and joined the 2nd Polish Corps. As a soldier, he took part in the Italian campaign and fought among others in the battle of Monte Cassino.
After the war, Kaczorowski studied in London at a University of Foreign Trade and later worked as a clerk in the British industry. At the same time he was still in the Scouting movement worked so. Chairman of the Polish scouting organization in exile, commander of the World Meeting of the Boy Scouts of Monte Cassino in 1969 and in Belgium in 1982 and the Polish delegation at the International Jamboree in 1957
On June 19, 1989 Kaczorowski was the resignation of the diseased Kazimierz Sabbat exiled president. A few months after taking office, the 3rd Polish Republic was established and in December 1990, Lech Wałęsa became the first freely elected President of Poland. The institutions of the government in exile in London broke up and on 22 December 1990 presented Kaczorowski during a special ceremony at the Warsaw Royal Castle, the presidential insignia of the 2nd Republic to Wałęsa.
After 1990, Kaczorowski gave numerous lectures, interviews and travel great respect in Poland and was made an honorary citizen of the city Bialystok, Krakow, Warsaw and Gdynia as well as honorary doctorates from the universities Wroclaw, Opole and Białystok.
Ryszard Kaczorowski, last lived in London.
On April 10, 2010 Kaczorowski belonged to a Polish delegation headed by President Lech Kaczyński, who was to travel on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the Katyń massacre to the memorial to Russia. However, in the plane crash of the delegation near the military airfield Smolensk - North he came together with other high-ranking representatives of Poland died. On 19 April 2010, the funeral Kaczorowski was held in Warsaw in the Temple of Divine Providence. However, the analysis of DNA samples submitted to the assumption that the body had been buried there, mistakenly identified by the Deputy Foreign Minister Jacek Najder who knew not good as the former President Kaczorowski. As a result of carried out on October 22, 2012 Exumierungen and the subsequent autopsies this and another, buried on Powązki cemetery corpse confirmed the misallocation of corpses. The re- burial Kaczorowski in the Temple of Divine Providence was held on 3 November 2012.