2RHPZ
12-16-2005, 04:14 AM
Veteran of two world wars, who saw Poland subjugated after the second and restored to independence in 1989
COLONEL Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski was the oldest known survivor of the First World War living in this country, albeit one who originally fought on the side of the Central Powers, Austria-Hungary and Germany.
He was born in 1894 in what was then known as Lemberg, the capital of what became the Austrian province of Galicia following the third and final partition of Poland in 1795 — the other provinces having been divided between Prussia and Tsarist Russia. (The city was after the First World War to become Lwow in an independent Poland; to pass to the Soviet Union after 1945 as Lvov; and is now Lviv in Ukraine.)
Rule from Vienna was relatively benign, and the Galician Poles enjoyed a degree of autonomy in local government. Pajaczkowski was destined for a legal career and began his studies at Lemberg University in 1912, transferring to the University of Vienna two years later.
On the outbreak of war in 1914, between the Central Powers and Britain, France and Russia, Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of both alliances. Pajaczkowski was called up into that of Austria-Hungary, but was sent as an infantry officer to the Italian front and so spared having to fight against his fellow countryman serving under the Tsar.
Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1930466,00.html)
COLONEL Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski was the oldest known survivor of the First World War living in this country, albeit one who originally fought on the side of the Central Powers, Austria-Hungary and Germany.
He was born in 1894 in what was then known as Lemberg, the capital of what became the Austrian province of Galicia following the third and final partition of Poland in 1795 — the other provinces having been divided between Prussia and Tsarist Russia. (The city was after the First World War to become Lwow in an independent Poland; to pass to the Soviet Union after 1945 as Lvov; and is now Lviv in Ukraine.)
Rule from Vienna was relatively benign, and the Galician Poles enjoyed a degree of autonomy in local government. Pajaczkowski was destined for a legal career and began his studies at Lemberg University in 1912, transferring to the University of Vienna two years later.
On the outbreak of war in 1914, between the Central Powers and Britain, France and Russia, Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of both alliances. Pajaczkowski was called up into that of Austria-Hungary, but was sent as an infantry officer to the Italian front and so spared having to fight against his fellow countryman serving under the Tsar.
Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1930466,00.html)