ALBUM OF TRAVELS OF HELENA AND OSCAR HALECKI(1938 USA, 1939 Switzerland, 1940-42 USA)

The invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in September 1939 found Helena and Oskar Halecki on one of their trips to Switzerland. Almost a year earlier, they had visited the United States, to which they would eventually emigrate as a result of the war and stay there until their deaths.

Oskar Halecki (1891-1973) was a medieval historian and politician, one of the most prominent researchers of the Jagiellonian period in Central Europe. In 1918-1919 he was an expert in the Polish Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, and later a member of the Secretariat of the League of Nations (1921-1924). He was a prominent member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Krakow. In 1940 he found himself in the USA, where he became a co-founder of PIASA. From 1942 to 1952 he was director of PIASA and later its President (1952-1964). He worked and taught at Fordham University in New York.

Helena Halecka (1891-1964) was born in Krakow – her father was Alojzy Szarłowski, a historian, geographer and veteran of the 1863 January Uprising in Lithuania. She was socially active in Cracow and later in Warsaw in the Marian sodalities. On July 5, 1913, her marriage to historian Oskar Halecki took place at the Sodalite Chapel of St. Barbara’s Church in Krakow. She shared her husband’s research interests and helped him with his work. She compiled indexes to many of his works and detailed bibliographies of his works. After 1939, she took part in the émigré life of the New York Polish community.

Load More Loading More… You’ve reached the end of the list