State funeral for diplomat and Auschwitz-survivor Bartoszewski

Former ambassador and foreign minister Władysław Bartoszewski will be given a state funeral on 4 May.

Bartoszewski died on Friday aged 93.

He survived internment in the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz and later joined the Polish Underground State’s Council to Aid Jews (Żegota), only to be imprisoned by Poland’s communist regime in the 1950s, will be laid to rest in his home city of Warsaw, in the Powązki Cemetery.

He will be interred in the graveyard’s Avenue of Honour, according to a government spokesperson.
Meanwhile, town halls across Poland opened condolence books on Monday in honour of Bartoszewski.

Historian Norman Davies, who had known Bartoszewski for many years, has commented that the latter’s personality was so strong, that on meeting him once one would remember that encounter for a lifetime.
Bartoszewski, who served as foreign minister twice following the 1989 end of communist rule Poland, remained a highly energetic figure until his last days.

Among his many concerns, he was a committed advocate of building bridges between his homeland and Israel and Germany.

“He was a man of reconciliation,” Davies underlined.