Aleksander Jacek Kowalewski
ps. "Longinus"

         Aleksander Jacek Kowalewski pseudonym "Longinus", born on August 17, 1920 in Vilnius, a son of Paweł and Agata.
         From his youngest years we was dreaming about the work connected with airplanes designing and flying. In 1939 he passed the Matura exam in the Mechanical Gymnasium in Vilnius and in July that year he arrived in Warsaw willing to take up a job in Państwowe Zakłady Inżynierii in Ursus, which at the time worked for the needs of war industry and air force. The experience gained there was to open a way to fulfilment of Aleksander's dreams as well as the studies in Wyzsza Szkoła Inżynierska named after Rotwand and Wawelberg.
         Unfortunately, the war outbreak made all the plans impossible. Aleksander found himself alone in an alien city, at the mercy of strangers. He worked as a mechanic in private service stations. He was often starving and his health deteriorated very much. A very hard but permanent work as a stoker's helper on the rail made him regain strength.
         In July 1941, while working as a car mechanic, he established contacts with the conspiracy, with the Second Lieutenant Michał Juchnicki. in 1942 he took part in the training of Podchorążówka (The Cadet School) and participated in, among the others, the transport of captured weapons to the hiding places in the Jewish Cemetery.
         After an unsuccessful attempt on an informer's life he had to desist from his activities for some time.
         To the Rising he went with his cousin Eugeniusz Sawicki. When, after an unsuccessful attack, the unit withdrew into the Kabackie Woods, he hid under the floor in one of the households he passed and, having waited till the end of the revision, he came back to Mokotów and was assigned to the "Baszta" regiment of the liaison company K4, his commanding officer was "Lucjan" Jerzy Stefan Stawiński.
         After leaving the sewers in the Dworkowa street, he was transported into the prison camp Sandbostel - his identification number 220587/XB - liberated by the British army on April 21, 1945.
         He came back to Warsaw in June 1946; in The same year He started his studies on the Air force Departament of Wyższa Szkoła Inżynierska named after Rotwand and Wawelberg, where he obtained an engineer degree. From 1949, being a student still, he started a didactic work in Katedra Geometrii Wykreślnej i Rysunku Technicznego of his mother Department. After the compulsory mixture of his school with the Warsaw Polytechnic he finished his master's studies on the Air force Department of the Warsaw Polytechnic, being a Department research worker incessantly.
         The Rising and underground past made it impossible to fulfil his dreams. Due to his biography, he couldn't even belong to a student organisation and was not allowed to professional designing of airplane engines, which was the theme of his master's degree.
         That is why he devoted his whole professional life for the didactic work on the Warsaw Polytechnic and SGGW. For the number of years he was a carer, also of student halls of residence. He was a prizewinner of a plebiscite initiated by the students of the Department of water land improvements under the title "A person the most admired by us."
         On his initiative, to commemorate the insurgents assassinated after leaving the sewers, a monument in The Dworkowa street was erected. He was the first to light a handle in a place that could have also been the place of his eternal rest.
         
         He died on May 20, 1997 in Warsaw.
         

edited by Anna Skarżyńska (a daughter)

Translated by Monika Ałasa