![[Tomczyk Picture]](TomczykowskaW_01.JPG)
Wanda Tomczykowska
August 29, 1921 - March 2, 2010
Promoter of Polish culture in California
by Gillian Olechno-Huszcza
Wanda Tomczykowska (nee Wanda Bronislawa Krawczykowna of the Kurnatowski branch of the "Lodzia" coat of arms) was born in Silesia, an area of Poland contested by both the Poles and the Germans. Her father, Leon Krawczyk, was a theater director in the Katowice area who as a young man was politically involved with the Silesian Uprisings of 1919-1923, thanks to which this part of Upper Silesia was returned to Poland. Because of that, he was subject to arrest when the Germans entered the area in 1939. Unable to find him, they deported Wanda to Berlin, thus interrupting her studies at a Teachers College. She spent seven years as an "adopted" daughter of a German-Polish couple and graduated from business college.
When the war ended, she worked as a tri-lingual translator and interpreter. During this time, she met and married Zygmunt Tomczykowski, a Polish-American officer stationed in Berlin. In 1947 the couple and their one year-old daughter, Caria, returned to his family home in Boston, Massachusetts. Zygmunt Tomczykowski, a recipient of the "Purple Heart" Order, died three years later.
A single parent, Wanda wrote for Polish-American newspapers and worked as a librarian at Harvard University, initially at the Widener Library and later at the Farlow Library of Cryptogamic Botany. She also audited several language and Comparative Slavic Literature courses at the University. While working as a translator she prepared English language glossaries of glaciological and meteorological terms from Polish, Turkish, Arabic and Modem Greek. On the Harvard campus and at the International Institute in Boston she continued her involvement in the "Polish Cause" by creating a Quo Vadis? Literary Club preparing exhibits, teaching Polish national dances and helping Polish "displaced persons" arriving from German labor camps to establish new lives in the United States.
In the summer of 1955 Wanda and Caria decided to make their home in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Main Library at the University of California, Berkeley, offered Wanda a position as a cataloguer of a sizeable collection of Yugoslav books. Later she worked as a Slavic bibliographer and continued her courses in Comparative Slavic Literatures, while still finding time to organize and teach four groups of children and adults to perform Polish dances she had choreographed.
She also created the International Arts Productions under which a dance group of over 200 members from various nations performed Dance Across the World on stage and on television (San Francisco station KPIX, Channel 5). The dancers also appeared in programs promoting the People-to-People movement established by President Dwight Eisenhower, and the United Nations Association (UNA) of the Bay Area.
With the then President of the UNA of San Francisco, Mrs. Patricia Di Giorgio, Wanda helped establish the United Nations Center on Union Street and took charge of it on a part-time basis, preparing exhibits and programs, in particular for celebrations of the 25th Anniversary of the United Nations. When the Polish University Club was organized on the Berkeley campus, she was one of the officers who assisted visiting Polish scholars holding Rockefeller, Guggenheim and other grants in their efforts to meet their American counterparts and explore California.
In 1964 Wanda took Caria on travels around the world. Upon their return in 1966, Wanda and two of her friends created the Polish Arts and Culture Foundation to commemorate the Millennium of Poland's Christianity.
She has authored a number of Polish subject publications and is currently preparing I.J. Paderewski's speeches for publication. These were made available to her by the Hoover Archives and Anetka Strakacz Appleton, daughter of Paderewski's long time private secretary.
The President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Walesa, awarded Wanda Tomczykowska two decorations for her work and dedication to Polish culture; the Ambassador of Polish Culture (1991) and the Gold Cross of the Order of Merit (1993).
For a description of Wanda's extensive activities with the Polish Arts and Culture Foundation, see the chapter on that organization.
Supplement: On Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Pani Wanda finally succumbed, in Krakow, Poland, to the ravages of old age and diabetes. While vacationing in Poland in 2002 she suffered a series of strokes, which prevented her return to San Francisco. She is survived by her grieving daughter Caria, loving grandchildren Remy, Dariana and Sebastian (Ariani) Szykier and great granddaughters Hennessy and Lillian. She was predeceased by Caria's daughter Andria and son Damien. A Mass and Celebration of Life took place at the Church of St. Ignatius in San Francisco on March 20th. A memorial mass was celebrated in Krakow on June 23 and in Warsaw on June 28.From: Polish Americans in California, vol. II. National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs & Polish American Historical Association. California 1995.
Obituary
Wanda Bronislawa Tomczykowska
(Aug 29, 1921 - March 2, 2010)
Born into an old, fiercely patriotic, Polish family, tracing its roots almost 700 years, Pani Wanda Tomczykowska embodied all that she had seen as a young girl, and was taught as a student, on the subject of defending country, family and faith. Poland's turbulent history has been written in blood, on the pages of Time by a fickle hand. Geographically challenged with unfriendly neighbors and malevolent invaders, Pani Wanda remembered the losses of centuries gone by, as well as the handful of years still smoking around her, as she fervently dismissed the ridicule, slurs and insults, by propagating all the good about Poland, the romantic bliss and the nostalgic magic of this fatigued land. Poland's soul is heard in the music of Chopin and Moniuszko; her heart in the words of Kochanowski and Mickiewicz, her head in the discoveries of Kopernik and Sklodowska-Curie. Pani Wanda took all that was denied Poland in the mid 1900's and brought it to the fore in her adopted land of America.
A young widow with a daughter, first living on the East Coast, then on the West, she made time after work at the universities, to weave, over the decades, a remarkable tapestry of friends and associates, who are loyal to her, and her impassioned mission, to this day. The names that come to mind could easily fill a Who's Who and yet, these stars of Academia and the Arts, sat at her elegant table, eating and laughing and forgetting the troubles that Poland was enduring after World War II; they played their favorite melodies on her piano, as the others sang songs from school days or even before; they rode in her classic convertible car as she showed off the glory of California's hills and valleys over twisty roads that ended in paradise, allowing them to take the memories of the brilliant skies and the sparkle of the sea to the bleakness which was then, post-communist Poland. Discrimination was rampant still, almost unchanged from a hundred years ago, when Pani Wanda undertook the daunting task of integrating capable, intelligent and ambitious Poles into the work place, on the stage or behind a podium. Many Americans then, and many still do not, know that Poland was once the largest country in Europe, and that her kings, as well as her people, changed the history of the world. Pani Wanda in her own right, has also made a difference. Thanks to her gracious intentions and tenacious efforts, she used the now 41-year old Polish Arts and Culture Foundation as her new "classic car" to drive the message of Polish Pride to a broader audience through booklets, exhibits, and cultural programs, to a more amiable and accepting country and reviving the hope of Freedom for so many defeated countrymen. Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II are her two heroes.
Before the PACF, Pani Wanda handed out fruit and clothing to Displaced Persons arriving in Boston Harbor in 1948, organizing Polish Dance Companies in 1949 and 1957, joining forces with Eisenhower's People-to People Program in 1959 by creating a 20-nation company called Dance Around the World. For Polish exhibits in stores, museums, on college campuses or schools, the walls of her home would be stripped of her Polish treasures, just to share them with the community and to teach future generations that the world did not stop at their front gate. Demanding excellence from others, she was even more ruthless with herself. That drive helped San Francisco have the only Lech Walesa Way in the world, a Joseph Conrad Square and innumerable new friends who now treat Poles with the highest regard. The PACF's annual Polonaise Balls at The Fairmont Hotel's Gold Room are legendary. The dozens of exhibits over the years at the Main Library, at Stanford and UC Berkeley, have showcased Polish history, music and the arts.
With the generous support of the Beginning Few to the now, several hundred Members, the PACF has endured these four decades, often on a shoestring, yet is still making plans to lay the cornerstone for the eventual Polish Cultural Center of the Pacific. This ambitious dream needs to become a reality soon. The PACF inventory (nine thousand books, four hundred posters, dozens of crates of archival material, paintings, sculptures, folk craft and embroidered regional costumes) needs a permanent home. Pani Wanda was of a generation of doers and dreamers. It is our challenge to see this plan manifest. Working closely together with a select few like-minded organizations around the US, this concept is not an impossibility. It could be we only need to adopt Pani Wanda's mind set and just get it done, rather than discuss it for years, as is the tendency. Our forefathers demand it and our grandchildren deserve it. Globalization is upon us and with it, nationality and cultural identity could be dissolved.
What Pani Wanda sacrificed in her private life for this Polish Cause matches the many sacrifices and obstacles of her compatriots, a sacrifice that cannot be ignored. The numerous Medals and Diplomas of Recognition Pani Wanda has received are tangible symbols of gratitude, reminders of the work, the vision, and the magnificent obsession from which we all have benefited. An elegant lady who loved to travel and was more adventurous than she looked, lived with style and panache, through good times and bad, retired, due to poor health, to Krakow, Poland, not far from her beloved Wawel Hill, where another historical Wanda made a difference too.
In Krakow, on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Pani Wanda finally succumbed to the ravages of old age and illness to Rest in Peace.
She is survived by her grieving daughter Caria, loving grandchildren Remy, Dariana and Sebastian Szykier and great-granddaughters Hennessy and Lillian. She was predeceased by Caria's daughter Andria and son Damien.
There will be a Memorial Mass and Celebration of Life in San Francisco in late March and then in mid-April in Warsaw and Krakow.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to
The Polish Arts and Culture Foundation
477 Waterhouse Road, Oakland, CA
www.polishculturesf.org
Wanda Bronislawa Tomczykowska (Kurnatowska-Krawczyk)
Polish Arts and Culture Foundation executive, editor, librarian
Born Aug. 29, 1921, Nowy Bytom, Poland; came to U.S., 1947; daughter of Leon and Paulina (Fichnia); child: Caria.
Education: diploma, Teachers' College, Myslowice (Poland), 1939, and Business College, Berlin (Germany), 1944; various courses, Harvard University, Cambridge (MA), and University of California, Berkeley, 1951-64.
Career, i.a.: reporter, Dziennik dla Wszystkich, Buffalo (NY), 1948-50; library assistant, Harvard University Main Library, 1951; lexicographer, Meteorological Society, United States Air Force (USAF), Boston (MA), 1952-54; librarian, Harvard Museum of Cryptogamic Botany, 1954-55, Main Library, University of California, 1955-64, and Center for Research & Development in Higher Education, 1966-69, Berkeley (CA); director, United Nations (UN) Center, 1969-70, and International Arts Gallery, 1971-74, San Francisco (CA); interpreter, United States Information Agency (USIA), Washington (DC), 1980s'; founder, president, executive director, Polish Arts and Culture Foundation, San Francisco. 1966 -.
Author: editor, Bulletin and Forum of Polish Arts and Culture Foundation, since 1966; History of Polish Music (100 hours on Radio KPFA), Berkeley, 1966-76; numerous publications on Polish subjects.
Member of: Polish Program director, International Institute, Boston, 1948-54; Women's Faculty Club, University of California, 1955-85; founder, director, International Artistic Productions, San Francisco, 1959-74; United Nations (UN) Associations in Berkeley, 1968-74; founder, president, Chopin Foundation Council of San Francisco, 1987-95; World Affairs Council; International Diplomacy Council; Commonwealth Club; American Council of Polish Culture (A.C.P.C.); American Institute of Polish Culture, Miami (FL).
Honors: People to People award, 1961; Meritorious Service for Polish Culture award, Polish Ministry of Culture, 1991; Gold Cross - Order of Merit, L. Walesa, President of Poland, 1993.
Affiliation: Democrat. Roman Catholic.
Languages: Polish, English, German.
Hobbies: world travel, collecting Polonica, research.
Office: The Polish Arts and Culture Foundation, 1290 Sutter Street, San Francisco CA 94109.
From: "Who's Who in Polish America" 1st Edition 1996-1997, Boleslaw Wierzbianski editor; Bicentennial Publishing Corporation, New York, NY, 1996.