[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 24, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E961-E962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              RECOGNIZING THE LIFE OF JANUSZ BORZUCHOWSKI

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 24, 2015

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Janusz 
Borzuchowski of Bialystok, Poland, who helped keep the flame of liberty 
alive in one of this country's most important allies since the birth of 
the American Revolution.
  As the 2016 election cycle roars into our television sets and 
permeates our consciousness, I am pleased to be able to report from 
time to time on the sometimes secret heroes whose lives we can all 
celebrate in the most bipartisan fashion.
  Many of their stories we find in our civil and human rights 
movements, on our factory floors, in our military and police, in our 
hospitals, and myriad other places--all bearing the stamp: MADE IN THE 
USA.
  However, it is also important to remember those around the world who, 
while not sharing our sacred citizenship, do share our values--often at 
the greatest risk and greatest potential cost to themselves.
  Janusz Borzuchowski was not quite six years old when his father, 
Lieutenant Tadeusz Borzuchowski, was taken from their home by a Soviet 
Union then allied with Hitler's Germany. He, along with thousands of 
others of Poland's intelligencia, was murdered on Stalin's orders in 
Katyn Forest.
  As a young man, Janusz Borzuchowski became a civil engineer and well-
known outdoorsman, teaching at the local university and marrying a 
woman with whom he deeply fell in love, Halina Dworakowska, who herself 
returned to Poland very young after being born in Kazakhstan, where her 
parents had been sent into exile by the Soviet regime.

[[Page E962]]

  As the Polish motto, ``For Our Freedom--and Yours,'' slowly 
resurrected itself from behind the Iron Curtain, Janusz went on to be a 
key clandestine figure in the Solidarity movement in Eastern Poland. 
Working out of Bialystok, he was in charge of collecting money to 
support the cause--distributing in the process beautiful clandestine 
postage stamps for secret sale among liberty's partisans--and secretly 
running the region's printing press from one of his apartments.
  At the same time, his sister Agnieszka, who passed away three years 
ago, was a fabled physician in the Medical University of Bialystok who 
hid Solidarity movement fugitives from Communist authorities--
disguising them as patients in her hospital ward for infectious 
diseases. She was also the premier and pioneering figure in the largest 
city in northeastern Poland in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Just last 
year, Bialystok named a local park after Agnieszka in recognition of 
her vast following of well-wishers and her many medical, social, and 
political contributions to Poland.
  Agnieszka's passing was followed last year by that of Janusz's oldest 
daughter, Dorota, an architect in Warsaw who was very well known for 
her designing of the interiors of some of the most famous gambling 
casinos in Poland's capital. His other daughter, Polish American 
Congress Washington Director Dr. Barbara Borzuchowski Andersen, is one 
of the Polish American community advocates best known for her work with 
both Congress and the White House.
  Unfortunately Janusz--a devoted husband, father, brother and advocate 
for liberty--is himself now facing major health problems. I cannot 
think of a better tribute to him now than to salute him: ``W imie Boga 
za Nasza i Wasza Wolnosc''--thanking God, for our freedom, yours, and 
that of people around the world.

                          ____________________