Józef Marcinkiewicz (; 30 March 1910 in Cimoszka, near

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Białystok is located in the Białystok Up ...

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 ...

– 1940 in Katyn,

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

) was a Polish

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. He was a student of

Antoni Zygmund Antoni Zygmund (December 25, 1900 – May 30, 1992) was a Polish mathematician. He worked mostly in the area of mathematical analysis, including especially harmonic analysis, and he is considered one of the greatest analysts of the 20th century. ...

; and later worked with

Juliusz Schauder Juliusz Paweł Schauder (; 21 September 1899, Lwów, Austria-Hungary – September 1943, Lwów, Occupied Poland) was a Polish mathematician of Jewish origin, known for his work in functional analysis, partial differential equations and mathema ...

Stefan Kaczmarz Stefan Marian Kaczmarz (March 20, 1895 in Sambor, Galicia, Austria-Hungary – 1939) was a Polish mathematician. His Kaczmarz method provided the basis for many modern imaging technologies, including the CAT scan.. Kaczmarz was a professor of ...

and

Raphaël Salem Raphaël Salem (Greek: Ραφαέλ Σαλέμ; November 7, 1898 in Salonika, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloniki, Greece) – June 20, 1963 in Paris, France) was a Greek mathematician after whom are named the Salem numbers and Salem–Spencer sets ...

. He was a professor of the

Stefan Batory University Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...

Wilno Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

. He enlisted in the Polish Army during the

German invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...

. In the aftermath of the simultaneous

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subse ...

, Marcinkiewicz was taken as a Polish

POW A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...

to a Soviet camp in

Starobielsk Starobilsk ( uk, Старобільськ, russian: Старобельск) is a city in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Starobilsk Raion. The modern settlement was founded in 1686, and it was granted city stat ...

. The exact place and date of his death remain unknown, but it is believed that he died, when aged 30, in the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...

on the mass murder site near

Smolensk Smolensk ( rus, Смоленск, p=smɐˈlʲensk, a=smolensk_ru.ogg) is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest c ...

. His parents, to whom he gave his manuscripts before the beginning of World War II, were transported to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in 1940 and later died of hunger in a camp. Their fate is described by ZygmundSee his commemoration in the volume of Marcinkiewicz's collected papers . described the last and his lost mathematical works as follows:

War broke out a few days after Marcinkiewicz returned to Wilno. Zygmund writes On 2 September, the second day of the war, I came across him accidentally in the street in Wilno, already in military uniform ... We agreed to meet the same day in the evening but apparently circumstances prevented him from coming since he did not show up at the appointed place. A few months later came the news that he was a prisoner of war and was asking for mathematical books. It seems that this was the last news about Marcinkiewicz. During his time in Paris and England, Marcinkiewicz had produced some mathematical work which he had written down in manuscript form. After returning to Poland he gave these manuscripts to his parents for safe keeping. Sadly Marcinkiewicz's parents suffered the same fate as he did and died during the war. No trace of the manuscripts was ever found.

Notes

Bibliography

*. *.

References

External links

Biography of Józef Marcinkiewicz
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Marcinkiewicz, Jozef 1910 births 1940 deaths People from Sokółka County 20th-century Polish mathematicians World War II prisoners of war held by the Soviet Union Katyn massacre victims Polish military personnel killed in World War II Academic staff of Vilnius University Executed people from Podlaskie Voivodeship

See also

Notes

Bibliography

References

External links