Leopold Unger

Leopold Unger ( code name: Paul Mathil; Brukselczyk ) ( born August 12, 1922 in Lviv, † December 20, 2011 in Brussels) was a Polish journalist and until his death the oldest active professional journalist in Poland. He lived since 1969 in Brussels.

Born in 1922 in the then Polish Lviv into a Jewish family, he fled at age 17 on 17 September 1939 to Romania, where he survived the Second World War.

In 1948 he became a correspondent for the Polish Press Agency PAP in Bucharest. Returned to Warsaw, he became secretary of the editorial board of the newspaper " Życie Warszawy ". He was also a foreign correspondent in Cuba.

After the March riots in 1968 in Poland Unger was forced to leave in 1969 and found refuge in Belgium. He was a regular contributor of " Le Soir " under the pseudonym Paul Mathil. He also wrote for the " International Herald Tribune " and for Radio Free Europe and the Parisian " Kultura ".

After the 1989 reunification he was a regular contributor to the newly founded Warsaw daily newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza ". Despite his age Unger supplied the editors to last with often polemical articles.

On his 85th birthday in 2008, the book Udalo mi się mieć ciekawe życie appeared ( I managed an interesting life ), with lyrics by Władysław Bartoszewski Geremek, Ryszard Kapuściński, Leszek Kolakowski, Bohdan Osadczuk, Adam Daniel Rotfeld, Andrzej Wajda, Lech Wałęsa and Józef Życiński.

June 30, 2009 Unger was made an honorary Doctor of Maria Curie -Skłodowska University in Lublin.