Gen. The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning"). ...

Piotr Jaroszewicz (; 8 October 1909 – 1 September 1992) was a post

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Polish

political figure A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. He served as the

Prime Minister of Poland The President of the Council of Ministers ( pl, Prezes Rady Ministrów, lit=Chairman of the Council of Ministers), colloquially referred to as the prime minister (), is the head of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The responsibi ...

between 1970 and 1980. After he was forced out of office he lived quietly in a suburb of

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

until his murder in 1992.

Life and career

Jaroszewicz was born on 8 October 1909 in Nieśwież, in the

Minsk Governorate The Minsk Governorate (russian: Минская губерния, Belarusian: ) or Government of Minsk was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. The seat was in Minsk. It was created in 1793 from the land acquired in the partiti ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

(present-day

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

). After finishing the secondary school in

Jasło Jasło is a county town in south-eastern Poland with 36,641 inhabitants, as of 31 December 2012. It is situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (since 1999), and it was previously part of Krosno Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is located in Lesse ...

he started working as a teacher and headmaster in

Garwolin Garwolin is a town on the Wilga river in eastern Poland, capital of Garwolin County, situated in the southeast part of the Garwolin plateau in Masovian Voivodeship, 62 km southeast of Warsaw, 100 km northwest of Lublin. As of December ...

. After the outbreak of

and the Nazi-Soviet alliance established by the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , long_name = Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg , image_width = 200 , caption = Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking ...

he moved to Soviet-occupied zone of Poland. It has been claimed that he was a headmaster in Pinsk gymnasia. However, on 10 July 1940 he was deported to Slobodka, Krasnoborski region, Arkhangelsk, from Stolin together with his first wife Oksana Gregorevna (born in Salov/Calow 1914) and daughter Olila (born 1940). In 1943 he joined the 1st Polish Army of Gen.

Zygmunt Berling Zygmunt Henryk Berling (27 April 1896 – 11 July 1980) was a Polish general and politician. He fought for the independence of Poland in the early 20th century. Berling was a co-founder and commander of the First Polish Army, which fought on th ...

. The following year he joined the

Polish Workers Party The Polish Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1948 ...

and was promoted to deputy political commander of the 1st Army. After the war he became the deputy minister of defense (1945–1950). Since 1956 he was the Polish ambassador to

COMECON The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (, ; English abbreviation COMECON, CMEA, CEMA, or CAME) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc#List of s ...

. At the same time between 1952 and 1970 he served as a deputy Prime Minister of Poland and briefly (1954–1956) as the minister of mining industry. Jaroszewicz was a member of the

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the ...

of the

Polish United Workers' Party The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...

since its creation in 1948 and since 1964 he was also a member of the Political Bureau. From December 1970 until February 1980 he was the

. The economical policies of Jaroszewicz and

Edward Gierek Edward Gierek (; 6 January 1913 – 29 July 2001) was a Polish Communist politician and ''de facto'' leader of Poland between 1970 and 1980. Gierek replaced Władysław Gomułka as First Secretary of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (P ...

led to a wave of protests in 1976 and 1980. In 1980 he gave up all his party posts and was expelled from the party the following year.

Death

After his departure from office and the party, Jaroszewicz and second wife Alicja Solska settled in the

suburb of Anin. The couple largely kept to themselves and did not socialize much. Jaroszewicz was obsessed with security; he had a 3.3-metre (11-foot) fence topped with

barbed wire A close-up view of a barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is ...

installed around their villa. When he walked their

Rottweiler The Rottweiler (, ) is a breed of domestic dog, regarded as medium-to-large or large. The dogs were known in German as , meaning Rottweil butchers' dogs, because their main use was to herd livestock and pull carts laden with butchered meat ...

, neighbours said, he often carried a pistol with him. Despite these measures, their son Jan Jaroszewicz found the couple murdered when he entered the house on 3 September 1992. Poison gas had been used to incapacitate the dog. Jaroszewicz's body, found in his upstairs study, had the belt that had been used to strangle him intact secured by an antique

ice axe An ice axe is a multi-purpose hiking and climbing tool used by mountaineers in both the ascent and descent of routes that involve snow, ice, or frozen conditions. Its use depends on the terrain: in its simplest role it is used like a walking ...

from his collection. The attackers had also beaten him, yet had bandaged the wounds. Solska's body was next to her husband's. Her hands had been tied behind her back, and she had been shot in the head at close range with one of the couple's hunting rifles. Investigators believe that she had earlier managed to injure one of the killers during a struggle with him or her, since blood from her and an unknown individual were found in another room in the house. The killers appeared to have searched every room in the house. It was initially reported that they only took what were presumed to have been documents from one safe and left behind valuable old coins and art were left behind, suggesting the thieves were not motivated by financial gain. However police records show the thieves actually stole two guns, 5 thousand. German marks, five gold coins and a ladies' watch. Friends and family said that Jaroszewicz had been even more paranoid than usual in the days before the murders, which were determined to have occurred on 1 September, two days before the bodies were discovered. The killings received significant media attention in Poland, due both to Jaroszewicz's past leadership and the brutality of the crime. Unproven theories circulated that the killers had been looking for information with which to

blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...

Solidarity ''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti ...

leaders or victims of the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

regime looking for revenge or evidence of past crimes. However in 2017 Warsaw police revealed the burglary had been committed by the 'Karate Gang' of Radom, a group of violent criminals active through the 1990s. They had broken into Jaroszewicz's home expecting to find significant sums of money and tortured him in an effort to find it. When Jaroszewicz broke free the gang murdered both him and his wife, then hurriedly left. Several Karate gang members went on trial for this and other crimes in 2021. They denied any political motivation for the burglary.

References

External links

Life and career

Death

See also

References

External links