Janusz Marja Stefan Rogala Kaluski (1924"Stamp of a Nation" in ''Stamp Lover'', Vol. 95, December 2003, p.163.–2010) was a

sapper A sapper, also called a pioneer (military), pioneer or combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefie ...

in the Polish Army who took part in the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

landings of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and who later won the Cross of Valour. In later life, Kaluski devoted himself to the

philately Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting or the study of postage; it is poss ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, eventually becoming a Fellow of the

Royal Philatelic Society London The Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL) is the oldest philatelic society in the world. It was founded on 10 April 1869 as ''The Philatelic Society, London''. The society runs a postal museum, the Spear Museum of Philatelic History, at its he ...

and donating his

stamp collection Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study (or combined study and collection) of stamps. It has been one of the world's most popular hobbies since the late nineteenth ...

of fifty years to the British Library Philatelic Collections in 2003.

Early life

Jan Kaluski was born in Poland in 1924 and began collecting stamps in 1933, continuing until the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

World War II

Kaluski joined the

Polish Army in the West The Polish Armed Forces in the West () refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. Polish forces were also raised within Soviet territories; the ...

in 1941, after arriving in Scotland via Persia, Palestine, Egypt and South Africa. He took part in the

landings as a

and carried out

mine-clearing Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves. By contra ...

work in the Netherlands. He was awarded the Cross of Valour. After the war he settled in the United Kingdom where he lived for the rest of his life.

Later life

Kaluski restarted his stamp collection in the early 1950s and spent the following fifty years expanding it. He was reported as saying that he wished to donate his collection to the British people as a way of thanking them for welcoming him to Britain.

The Kaluski Collection

The

Kaluski Collection The Kaluski Collection is a collection of stamps of Poland that forms part of the British Library Philatelic Collections. It was formed by Janusz Kaluski and donated to the library in 2003 and includes 46 volumes detailing the stamps and postal hi ...

was donated to the

British Library Philatelic Collection The British Library Philatelic Collections is the national philatelic collection of the United Kingdom with over 8 million items from around the world. It was established in 1891 as part of the British Museum Library, later to become the B ...

s in 2003 and includes in 46 volumes postage stamps and

postal history Postal history is the study of postal systems and how they operate and, or, the study of the use of postage stamps and covers and associated postal artifacts illustrating historical episodes in the development of postal systems. The term is att ...

material of Poland from 1835 to 2002.The Kaluski Collection
British Library Philatelic Collections. Retrieved 18 February 2011.

References

External links

Image of Janusz Kaluski presenting his collection to David Beech in 2003.

Society for Polish Philately in Great Britain
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaluski Kaluski, Janusz Kaluski, Janusz Kaluski, Janusz Kaluski, Janusz Kaluski, Janusz Kaluski, Janusz Philately of Poland Fellows of the Royal Philatelic Society London Recipients of the Cross of Valour (Poland)