Janusz Kazimierz Zawodny (11 December 1921 – 8 April 2012) was a Polish-American historian, political scientist, and World War II soldier and resistance fighter of the Polish Underground State.[1]
Zawodny fought in the Polish Army during World War II, initially during the Invasion of Poland, then with the underground Home Armyresistance movement. He took part as a second lieutenant in the 1944 Warsaw uprising during the September campaign, first a soldier of the ZWZ (Związek Walki Zbrojnej), then the AK (Armia Krajowa). In the Warsaw Uprising he was a platoon commander of a battalion AK "Lukasiriski", and later replaced the commander of the companies "Cost" in the group the "Pine" at the Old Town. In the street fighting against Waffen-SS troops, he was twice wounded: once in the hand by submachine gun fire at point-blank range, and once to his face and ear by schrapnel after he recovered, and threw back, a live German grenade that was tossed into the bunker he and his men were sheltering in. After the uprising, he was captured and became a prisoner of warinOflag VII-A Murnau under a different name, "Turczyk", as he was wanted by the Gestapo beginning in April 1944. After liberation from Murnau, he joined the Second Polish Army Corps in Italy, where he commanded a battalion of heavy armored cars in the 12th Podolian Uhlan Regiment.
After the war (1945–48), he continued his military service with Polish Second Corps. When the Soviet Union took control of the country, creating the People's Republic of Poland, he decided to stay abroad and emigrated to the United States, ultimately residing in Washington state until his death in 2012.
