Stefan Korbonski - resistance fighter, lawyer, educator, Polonia activistZofia Korbonska nee Rietau was born in Warsaw May 10, 1915. Her father Waclaw was a chemical engineer, her mother was Zenobia nee Gryf Kwiecinska.
Her studies: Zofia Kurmanowa pension-school, Maria Konopnicka Gymnasium [high school], School of Political Science in Warsaw and a two month course in Paris.
On July 10, 1938 she married Stefan Korbonski, a lawyer in Warsaw who worked for the Garlitski-Korbonski law firm.
On Sept. 9, 1939 she left Warsaw for Lublin where her husband joined with the Polish army. She went to stay with her grandmother Cecylia Hulewicz in Kowl where on Sept. 17 the first Soviet divisions arrived. Her husband, a reserve officer, was taken captive and shipped into Soviet Russia, but managed to escape from the transport and reached Kowl, after which both went to Warsaw.
During the war (1939-45) the couple worked together as members of the Polish underground. They organized a secret radio-station which from 1941 to the end of the war maintained daily contact with the Polish Government in London. She was a radio operator, intelligence officer and code clerk; then trained a group of women to do this type of work. She took part in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
After the war she and her husband were arrested by the Soviet Security Police (NKVD) but the both were released as a result of an amnesty on the return of Mikolajczyk to Poland and the formation of the Temporary Government of National Unity.
During 1945-47 she and her husband worked in the PSL (the Peasant Party). He become president of the PSL and a Sejm Deputy. When threatened with arrest again, they fled to Sweden, then to London; in November 1947 they reached the United States. In April 1948 she began work at Voice of America radio. She broadcasted to Poland; working as a script writer, announcer, and senior editor.
She continued to assist her husband working in the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN) of which he was president and helped to publish his books, articles, press releases and run an office and an archive.
After the death of her husband on April 23, 1989 she gave a series of interviews and published articles in Poland and in the Polish-American press. She lives in Washington and is preparing the remainder of archival materials, and is also writing her memoir.
From: Przeglad Polski (Nowy Dziennik, Sept. 12, 2003)