Halina Najder

Halina Najder, née Halina Teresa Paschalska, later Halina Carroll (7 October 1926 – 4 February 2017) was a Polish-British translator of English literature and a veteran of the Warsaw Uprising 1944.

Background She was the younger daughter of Władysław Paschalski (died 1927), owner of a machine factory connected to the tobacco industry, and his wife, Irena née Górska (1890-1990).

During World War II she enlisted as a teenager in the Resistance as part of the Grey Ranks and the Home Army. she met a Polish post-graduate student in Oxford, Zdzisław Najder, with whom she collaborated in literary work and whom she married in 1965. It was a second marriage for both. In 1969, with her new husband and her own two children, she decided to return to Poland. Between 1976 and 1981, she was active in the "Polskie Porozumienie Niepodległościowe", a dissident political movement founded by her husband. With the declaration of Martial law in Poland, in December 1981, she and her family fled abroad. Her husband Zdzisław, became chief of the Polish-language section of Munich-based Radio Free Europe (RFE) in April 1982. In response, the Polish government under the leadership of Wojciech Jaruzelski accused her husband of spying for United States intelligence services and sentenced him to death in absentia. She and her husband did not return to their native country until the fall of communism in 1989.

She died on 4 February 2017 in Warsaw, having been nursed to the end by her husband. She was buried in Powązki Cemetery. Polish Army Medal Medal Wojska – twice Krzyż Armii Krajowej Warszawski Krzyż Powstańczy Award "Weteran Walk o Wolność i Niepodległość Ojczyzny” (Veteran of Battles for Freedom and Independence)