Józef Kasparek
Encyclopedia
Józef Kasparek was a Polish
lawyer
, historian
and political scientist.
Until World War II he lived in southeastern Poland (in Poland's southern Kresy
), in an area that is now in western Ukraine
.
(in German
, Braunau), Bohemia
, Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is now the Czech Republic
, near that country's border with what was then German Silesia
and is now Poland's Lower Silesian Province
. Kasparek was the son of Teodor Kasparek and Emilia, née
Obst. The father was a lawyer who, before World War I
, had been a judge in Austrian-ruled Bosnia and was now, aged fifty, serving as a volunteer in Józef Piłsudski's Polish Legions
; in his youth, parting ways with his lawyer-father's conservatism and Germanic-culture orientation, he had co-founded the Polish Socialist Party
with Ignacy Daszyński
before studying law in Zurich
, Switzerland
.
While Teodor Kasparek was serving in Piłsudski's Legions, his son Józef spent his first years at Żurawno, on the Dniester River, birthplace of one of the 16th-century founders of Polish literature
, Mikołaj Rej. Józef later attended the Lwów Corps of Cadets, a state-run military-style secondary school. He also studied piano
at his paternal maiden aunts' well-regarded music school in Lwów. Later, as a young man, he participated in stage plays under the tutelage of the celebrated theater director, Leon Schiller
. He drew portraits with the skill of an inspired artist. But Józef, whom his mother called a "gawędziarz
" (story-teller), seemed to find himself especially as a writer. While a law student at Lwów University, he wrote for the Lwów "political-opposition" newspaper, Dziennik Polski (The Polish Daily), edited by Klaudiusz Hrabyk, and compiled a collection of short stories
that was about to be published when World War II
supervened.
reservist
, helped initiate and carry out, under Polish General Staff direction, covert operation
s in Carpathian Rus
. The object of Akcja Łom (Operation Crowbar)—Kasparek was unaware of the cryptonym—coordinated with operations by Hungarian paramilitary
forces, was to subvert
the Nazi-German-aligned
regime
of Avhustyn Voloshyn
and restore that easternmost, smallest region of Czechoslovakia
to Hungary
. Carpathian Rus was being turned by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
into a Piedmont
to aspirations for Ukrainian national independence, which might have been won for the first time since medieval Kievan Rus.
A Ukrainian sich
(military camp) outside the Rusyn capital, Uzhhorod
, was, under German
tutelage, training Ukrainians from southeastern Poland for prospective action in Poland jointly with Germany. This constituted a clear and present danger to the Polish population just across the Carpathian Mountains
in largely Ukrainian-populated southeastern Poland, as Adolf Hitler
worked to complete a near-total encirclement of Poland on her north, west and south while Poland's eastern frontier faced a hostile Soviet Union
.
Hungary had ruled Carpathian Rus from the Middle Ages
until defeated in World War I, and had been lobbying Adolf Hitler to sanction Hungary's repossession of Rus. Following the Polish-Hungarian covert operations in Carpathian Rus, under the First Vienna Award
in November 1938, Hungary received some largely Hungarian-populated areas of Carpathian Rus.
Further coordinated Polish-Hungarian partisan
operation
s ultimately led to the restoration, in mid-March 1939, of Hungarian sovereignty over all of Carpathian Rus and the re-establishment of the historic common Polish-Hungarian border.
Six months later, during the invasion of Poland in September 1939
, that common border would become of pivotal importance when Hungarian Regent
Miklós Horthy
's grateful government, as a matter of "Hungarian honor", declined Hitler's request to transit German forces across Rus into southeastern Poland to speed Poland's conquest. This in turn allowed the Polish government and tens of thousands of Polish military personnel to escape into neighboring Romania
and Hungary, and from there to France and French-mandated Syria
to carry on operations as the third-strongest Allied belligerent after Britain and France.
Before the outbreak of World War II
, for his part in the Carpathian operation, Kasparek received the Cross of Valor (Krzyż Walecznych). After the war, in Britain, General Bolesław Bronisław Duch heard of the operation from other participants and nominated Kasparek for Poland's highest military decoration, the Virtuti Militari
. At the session of the kapituła (chapter), however, the nomination was blocked by General Władysław Anders after Duch adamantly opposed Anders' own nomination of his paymaster for the Virtuti Militari.
. A particular turning point in the September Campaign for Kasparek, which likely saved his life, occurred when he was sent to Żółkiew for maps and, at 16th-century Hetman
Stanisław Żółkiewski's castle, met Colonel Stanisław Maczek (who later in the war, in Great Britain
, would become commander of the Polish First Armored Division). Maczek transferred Kasparek, who had just been wounded by a German aerial bomb
outside the castle, to a newly-formed artillery battery, thereby liberating him from his Virtuti-Militari
-decorated sadistic captain.
After the Soviet Army
entered Lwów, the local Polish Army commander, General Władysław Langner
, ordered his forces to surrender to the Soviet
forces and place themselves in Soviet custody. Kasparek showed the independent streak that he had inherited from his parents and refused to obey the order. He attempted unsuccessfully to convince fellow officers to do likewise. By refusing what he considered a disastrous order on Langner's part, Kasparek avoided becoming, like the officers who obeyed it, a victim of the Katyn massacre
s. Soon after, he joined the nascent Polish Resistance movement.
Denounced to the Soviet authorities, arrested, and interrogated for six months by the Soviet NKVD
, Kasparek was sentenced to eight years in Soviet Gulag
forced labor camps, called łagry by the Poles. His pregnant wife had already been deported to Kazakhstan; their first daughter would die there at age two of pertussis
. Kasparek himself barely survived two years' hard labor, emaciation and near-fatal typhus
before being "amnestied
" with other Poles by the Soviets after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union
(June 1941).
Joining General Władysław Anders' new Polish army, the Second Corps, being formed in the USSR, Kasparek and his wife, reunited after two years, were evacuated to the Middle East
. There Kasparek served as adjutant
to General Leopold Okulicki
. From the Middle East, rather than going on to Italy
with most of the Second Corps, Kasparek and his wife transferred into the Polish Air Force
in Great Britain
. After the war, he was a contract military officer, serving as adjutant to General Bolesław Bronisław Duch, until 1948, when Polish military units were disbanded.
, where he would live out the next fifty years. He would variously say that he had decided to move because of the poor postwar British economy
; because the Soviet Union
had exploded an atom bomb (1949), and he and his wife had involuntarily and separately spent time in the wartime USSR; and because of English xenophobia
directed at their (British-born) son.
In the United States, resuming an interest in comparative constitutional systems
that Kasparek had begun in law school, he wrote a doctoral thesis that became the book, The Constitutions of Poland and of the United States. The book compares, and traces mutual influences upon, the constitutions of the United States and Poland, including the world's first modern codified national constitution, the United States Constitution
that went into effect in 1789, and the world's second, Poland's Constitution of May 3, 1791
.
Kasparek had experienced war
at first hand. By the 1950s he had concluded that the world's peoples must replace warfare with global procedures to budget the world's resources to meet the world's needs. His view was borne out by subsequent decades, which brought nuclear-weapons limitation treaties and a growing realization that global environmental
threats call for global remedies.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
and political scientist.
Until World War II he lived in southeastern Poland (in Poland's southern Kresy
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
), in an area that is now in western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
.
Early years
Józef Kasparek was born in 1915 in BroumovBroumov
Broumov is a town in the Czech Republic, in the Náchod District of the Hradec Králové Region near the Polish border. The municipality at the small Stěnava River is the center of the Broumovsko area, along with the adjacent Adršpach-Teplice Rocks, a protected area popular with mountain...
(in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Braunau), Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is now the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
, near that country's border with what was then German Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
and is now Poland's Lower Silesian Province
Lower Silesian Voivodeship
Lower Silesian Voivodeship, or Lower Silesia Province , is one of the 16 voivodeships into which Poland is currently divided. It lies in southwestern Poland...
. Kasparek was the son of Teodor Kasparek and Emilia, née
NEE
NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...
Obst. The father was a lawyer who, before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, had been a judge in Austrian-ruled Bosnia and was now, aged fifty, serving as a volunteer in Józef Piłsudski's Polish Legions
Polish Legions in World War I
Polish Legions was the name of Polish armed forces created in August 1914 in Galicia. Thanks to the efforts of KSSN and the Polish members of the Austrian parliament, the unit became an independent formation of the Austro-Hungarian Army...
; in his youth, parting ways with his lawyer-father's conservatism and Germanic-culture orientation, he had co-founded the Polish Socialist Party
Polish Socialist Party
The Polish Socialist Party was one of the most important Polish left-wing political parties from its inception in 1892 until 1948...
with Ignacy Daszyński
Ignacy Daszynski
Ignacy Ewaryst Daszyński was a Polish politician, journalist and Prime Minister of the Polish government created in Lublin in 1918....
before studying law in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
While Teodor Kasparek was serving in Piłsudski's Legions, his son Józef spent his first years at Żurawno, on the Dniester River, birthplace of one of the 16th-century founders of Polish literature
Polish literature
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages, used in Poland over the centuries, have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and...
, Mikołaj Rej. Józef later attended the Lwów Corps of Cadets, a state-run military-style secondary school. He also studied piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
at his paternal maiden aunts' well-regarded music school in Lwów. Later, as a young man, he participated in stage plays under the tutelage of the celebrated theater director, Leon Schiller
Leon Schiller
Leon Schiller de Schildenfeld was a Polish theater and film director, critic and theoretician. He was also a composer and wrote theater and radio screenplays....
. He drew portraits with the skill of an inspired artist. But Józef, whom his mother called a "gawędziarz
Gawęda
A gawęda is a story; especially, one that belongs to a kind of Polish epic literary genre.-History:Gawęda is a genre of Polish folk literature....
" (story-teller), seemed to find himself especially as a writer. While a law student at Lwów University, he wrote for the Lwów "political-opposition" newspaper, Dziennik Polski (The Polish Daily), edited by Klaudiusz Hrabyk, and compiled a collection of short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
that was about to be published when World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
supervened.
Carpathian Rus
In late 1938, soon after the Munich Conference, Józef Kasparek, a 23-year-old Lwów University law student and Polish Army artilleryArtillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
reservist
Reservist
A reservist is a person who is a member of a military reserve force. They are otherwise civilians, and in peacetime have careers outside the military. Reservists usually go for training on an annual basis to refresh their skills. This person is usually a former active-duty member of the armed...
, helped initiate and carry out, under Polish General Staff direction, covert operation
Covert operation
A covert operation is a military, intelligence or law enforcement operation that is carried clandestinely and, often, outside of official channels. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation...
s in Carpathian Rus
Carpathian Ruthenia
Carpathian Ruthenia is a region in Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast , with smaller parts in easternmost Slovakia , Poland's Lemkovyna and Romanian Maramureş.It is...
. The object of Akcja Łom (Operation Crowbar)—Kasparek was unaware of the cryptonym—coordinated with operations by Hungarian paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
forces, was to subvert
Subversion (politics)
Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order, its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy; examples of such structures include the State. In this context, a "subversive" is sometimes called a "traitor" with respect to the government in-power. A subversive is...
the Nazi-German-aligned
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
regime
Regime
The word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature.-Politics:...
of Avhustyn Voloshyn
Avhustyn Voloshyn
Avgustyn Ivanovych Voloshyn was a Ukrainian politician, teacher, and essayist. He was president of the independent Carpatho-Ukraine, which existed for one day on March 15, 1939....
and restore that easternmost, smallest region of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
to Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. Carpathian Rus was being turned by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
into a Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
to aspirations for Ukrainian national independence, which might have been won for the first time since medieval Kievan Rus.
A Ukrainian sich
Sich
A sich is the administrative and military centre for Cossacks and especially the Zaporizhian Cossacks. It is derived from the Ukrainian word siktý, "to chop", meaning to clear a forest for an encampment, or to build a fortification with the trees that have been chopped down.The Zaporizhian Sich...
(military camp) outside the Rusyn capital, Uzhhorod
Uzhhorod
Uzhhorod or Uzhgorod is a city located in western Ukraine, at the border with Slovakia and near the border with Hungary. It is the administrative center of the Zakarpattia Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Uzhhorodskyi Raion within the oblast...
, was, under German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
tutelage, training Ukrainians from southeastern Poland for prospective action in Poland jointly with Germany. This constituted a clear and present danger to the Polish population just across the Carpathian Mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
in largely Ukrainian-populated southeastern Poland, as Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
worked to complete a near-total encirclement of Poland on her north, west and south while Poland's eastern frontier faced a hostile Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Hungary had ruled Carpathian Rus from the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
until defeated in World War I, and had been lobbying Adolf Hitler to sanction Hungary's repossession of Rus. Following the Polish-Hungarian covert operations in Carpathian Rus, under the First Vienna Award
First Vienna Award
The First Vienna Award was the result of the First Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace on November 2, 1938. The Arbitration and Award were direct consequences of the Munich Agreement...
in November 1938, Hungary received some largely Hungarian-populated areas of Carpathian Rus.
Further coordinated Polish-Hungarian partisan
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
operation
Military operation
Military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state's favor. Operations may be of combat or non-combat types, and are referred to by a code name for the purpose...
s ultimately led to the restoration, in mid-March 1939, of Hungarian sovereignty over all of Carpathian Rus and the re-establishment of the historic common Polish-Hungarian border.
Six months later, during the invasion of Poland in September 1939
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
, that common border would become of pivotal importance when Hungarian Regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
's grateful government, as a matter of "Hungarian honor", declined Hitler's request to transit German forces across Rus into southeastern Poland to speed Poland's conquest. This in turn allowed the Polish government and tens of thousands of Polish military personnel to escape into neighboring Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
and Hungary, and from there to France and French-mandated Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
to carry on operations as the third-strongest Allied belligerent after Britain and France.
Before the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, for his part in the Carpathian operation, Kasparek received the Cross of Valor (Krzyż Walecznych). After the war, in Britain, General Bolesław Bronisław Duch heard of the operation from other participants and nominated Kasparek for Poland's highest military decoration, the Virtuti Militari
Virtuti Militari
The Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari is Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war...
. At the session of the kapituła (chapter), however, the nomination was blocked by General Władysław Anders after Duch adamantly opposed Anders' own nomination of his paymaster for the Virtuti Militari.
World War II
Kasparek fought in defense of Poland during the country's invasion in September 1939Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
. A particular turning point in the September Campaign for Kasparek, which likely saved his life, occurred when he was sent to Żółkiew for maps and, at 16th-century Hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....
Stanisław Żółkiewski's castle, met Colonel Stanisław Maczek (who later in the war, in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, would become commander of the Polish First Armored Division). Maczek transferred Kasparek, who had just been wounded by a German aerial bomb
Aerial bomb
An aerial bomb is a type of explosive weapon intended to travel through the air with predictable trajectories, usually designed to be dropped from an aircraft...
outside the castle, to a newly-formed artillery battery, thereby liberating him from his Virtuti-Militari
Virtuti Militari
The Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari is Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war...
-decorated sadistic captain.
After the Soviet Army
Soviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
entered Lwów, the local Polish Army commander, General Władysław Langner
Wladyslaw Langner
Władysław Langner was a Polish general, best known as commander of the Siege of Lwów in 1939.-Early career:...
, ordered his forces to surrender to the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
forces and place themselves in Soviet custody. Kasparek showed the independent streak that he had inherited from his parents and refused to obey the order. He attempted unsuccessfully to convince fellow officers to do likewise. By refusing what he considered a disastrous order on Langner's part, Kasparek avoided becoming, like the officers who obeyed it, a victim of the Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
s. Soon after, he joined the nascent Polish Resistance movement.
Denounced to the Soviet authorities, arrested, and interrogated for six months by the Soviet NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, Kasparek was sentenced to eight years in Soviet Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
forced labor camps, called łagry by the Poles. His pregnant wife had already been deported to Kazakhstan; their first daughter would die there at age two of pertussis
Pertussis
Pertussis, also known as whooping cough , is a highly contagious bacterial disease caused by Bordetella pertussis. Symptoms are initially mild, and then develop into severe coughing fits, which produce the namesake high-pitched "whoop" sound in infected babies and children when they inhale air...
. Kasparek himself barely survived two years' hard labor, emaciation and near-fatal typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
before being "amnestied
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
" with other Poles by the Soviets after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
(June 1941).
Joining General Władysław Anders' new Polish army, the Second Corps, being formed in the USSR, Kasparek and his wife, reunited after two years, were evacuated to the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. There Kasparek served as adjutant
Adjutant
Adjutant is a military rank or appointment. In some armies, including most English-speaking ones, it is an officer who assists a more senior officer, while in other armies, especially Francophone ones, it is an NCO , normally corresponding roughly to a Staff Sergeant or Warrant Officer.An Adjutant...
to General Leopold Okulicki
Leopold Okulicki
General Leopold Okulicki was a General of the Polish Army and the last commander of the anti-German underground Home Army during World War II. He was murdered after the war by the Soviet NKVD....
. From the Middle East, rather than going on to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
with most of the Second Corps, Kasparek and his wife transferred into the Polish Air Force
Polish Air Force
The Polish Air Force is the military Air Force wing of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej...
in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. After the war, he was a contract military officer, serving as adjutant to General Bolesław Bronisław Duch, until 1948, when Polish military units were disbanded.
United States
In December 1951 Kasparek moved his family to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he would live out the next fifty years. He would variously say that he had decided to move because of the poor postwar British economy
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
; because the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
had exploded an atom bomb (1949), and he and his wife had involuntarily and separately spent time in the wartime USSR; and because of English xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
directed at their (British-born) son.
In the United States, resuming an interest in comparative constitutional systems
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
that Kasparek had begun in law school, he wrote a doctoral thesis that became the book, The Constitutions of Poland and of the United States. The book compares, and traces mutual influences upon, the constitutions of the United States and Poland, including the world's first modern codified national constitution, the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
that went into effect in 1789, and the world's second, Poland's Constitution of May 3, 1791
Constitution of May 3, 1791
The Constitution of May 3, 1791 was adopted as a "Government Act" on that date by the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Historian Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe"; other scholars also refer to it as the world's second oldest constitution...
.
Kasparek had experienced war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
at first hand. By the 1950s he had concluded that the world's peoples must replace warfare with global procedures to budget the world's resources to meet the world's needs. His view was borne out by subsequent decades, which brought nuclear-weapons limitation treaties and a growing realization that global environmental
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
threats call for global remedies.
See also
- First Vienna AwardFirst Vienna AwardThe First Vienna Award was the result of the First Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace on November 2, 1938. The Arbitration and Award were direct consequences of the Munich Agreement...
- Hungary–Poland relationsHungary–Poland relationsHungary–Poland relations are the foreign relations between Hungary and Poland. Relations between the two states date back to the Middle Ages, with the two peoples enjoying a traditional close friendship....
- List of Poles
- List of guerrillas
- Constitution of May 3, 1791