Władysław Piórek

Władysław Piórek (1852–1926) was a Polish physician, social and national activist. He was active in the parish community of the Cathedral of St. Martin and Nicholas in Bydgoszcz and supported the movement to build the Church of the Holy Trinity. Władysław Piórek was considered the leader of the Polish residents of Bromberg/Bydgoszcz. He was the first person to be made Honorary Citizen of Bydgoszcz.

Life Youth and medical practice Władysław Piórek was born on 27 November 1852, in Ostrów Wielkopolski, then Ostrowo in the Kingdom of Prussia. He was the son of Paweł, a non-commissioned officer conscripted into the Prussian army who, after leaving the forces, became a janitor at the boys' gymnasium in Ostrowo. His mother was Marianna née Oberst, a German woman from the Rhineland.

He completed primary school at home, then studied at the gymnasium where his father worked in Ostrowo; he passed there his matriculation exam in 1871.

Władysław took part in the Franco-Prussian War On 22 April 1889, he passed the district physician state examination in Berlin, giving him the right of making a professional career in the Prussian administration. In 1902, he was granted the title of sanitary counselor and at the beginning of World War I (1915) was promoted to privy sanitary counselor. In Bydgoszcz, he was considered a good diagnostician. He enjoyed great popularity among Polish patients from the city and the surrounding suburbs.

On 8 April 1895, Anna and Władysław Piórek purchased a tenement built in 1882 at then 8 Wilhelmstraße (present-day 22 Focha Street). just created in 1886.

For over a quarter of a century, he was active in the parish community of the Cathedral of St. Martin and Nicholas in Bydgoszcz. He participated with great commitment in the preparatory work aimed at erecting the Church of the Holy Trinity (1898–1912).

Family On 11 August 1882, Władysław Piórek married Anna Maria Magdalena, née Folleher (1865–1945). She was the daughter of Joseph Folleher, owner of an estate in Silno. They had four children: Wanda (1888–1980) Łucjan Władysław (1891–1958). He studied in primary and secondary school in Bydgoszcz and decided to become a doctor. He studied medicine at several universities (Munich, Krakow, Berlin and Leipzig), during the difficult period of World War I. Eventually, Łucjan graduated from Leipzig in October 1917: he specialized in infectious diseases, gynecology, and later in surgery. After the end of World War I, he volunteered as a physician to the Polish army. As such he fought during the Greater Poland Uprising, the 1920 Polish–Soviet War, the third Silesian Uprising (1921) and the Polish Defensive War of 1939. He was taken prisoner by the Germans during the Battle of the Bzura.

In January 1910, she married a Bydgoszcz lawyer, Wincenty Nowicki. The couple had two daughters, Zofia (born 1914) and Jadwiga (b. 1917). Wincenty served during WWI in Warsaw but died from illness in 1922.

The same year, Wanda took for second husband Franciszek Górski. The latter was a merchant and owner of an export-import company in the Free City of Danzig. He was also the Norwegian consul in Madagascar, as his firm imported valuable raw materials from the island. As a consequence, the couple and Wanda's daughters lived from 1923 to 1926 in the then-French colony. Franciszek had been gassed as a Prussian soldier during the First World War and his health was fragile. His deteriorating state urged the family to return to Poland. During the trip back, Franciszek died on a plantation in Madagascar: his corpse was buried in a cemetery in Nîmes, France.

Wanda and her daughters settled back again to Bydgoszcz in the family tenement house at 22 Focha Street. There, they lived by renting apartments in adjoining buildings.

In 196 she married the poet and painter Marian Turwid (1905–1987).

Jadwiga Piórka (1917–2014)

Zofia's younger sister Jadwiga wed in the same year (1936) Janusz Pasturczak (1899–1976), a military captain from Włocławek. Janusz was captured by the Germans early in the war and spent the entire time in camps (Magdeburg, Lübeck and Tangerhutte).

Jadwiga spent the German occupation in Warsaw after the evacuation of military families from Bydgoszcz. The award ceremony took place on 8 August 1926, in conjunction with Piórek's 50th anniversary of medical practice. He was the first person to be honored with such a title since the return of Bydgoszcz to Polish authorities.

On March 18, 1938, a portrait of Władysław Piórek was ceremonially hung in the conference room of the City Council. This painting was lost during World War II.

In February 1981, a street in Bydgoszcz Fordon district was named after him.