Franciszek Duszeńko

Franciszek Duszeńko (6 April 1925 – 11 April 2008) was a Polish sculptor, professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and its Rector in the years 1981–87. He was a former prisoner of Nazi concentration camps in World War II.

During the occupation of Poland Duszeńko was the soldier of Armia Krajowa (the Home Army) in the service of Gródek Jagielloński Inspectorate of Communication in the Lwów district (now Lviv, Ukraine). Arrested in Lwów, he became prisoner of two Nazi concentration camps including Gross-Rosen and Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. He survived, and later devoted his artistic output to the remembrance of those who had perished. He served as Head of Sculpture and Drawing Department in 1987–96. After his tenure, at the request of the authorities of the Gdańsk Academy, he continued to guide graduating students in their creative work leading toward the final diploma, until 2001. More than 800,000 Jews were murdered in the gas chambers of Treblinka during the Holocaust in Poland. He is also the author of the Westerplatte Monument in Gdańsk (with architects Adam Haupt and Henryk Kitowski) built in 1964–66, as well as the "Polish Gunners" in Toruń and notable others. A big retrospective of Franciszek Duszeńko's work was organized in January 2013 at the Günter Grass Gallery in Gdańsk. Duszeńko was posthumously awarded the Medal of the City of Gdańsk in 2008. He died only months earlier, and was buried at the Srebrzysko Cemetery locally.

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