Władysława Kostakówna

Władysława Kostakówna (also known as Władysława Śliwińska) (20 December 1908 – 1 March 2001) was a Polish spy for Allied forces in World War II. She was also a beauty pageant winner who gained fame as Miss Poland in 1929.

Biography Władysława Kostakówna was born 20 December 1908 in Warsaw, to a sculptor father Stanisław Kostak. In 1914 (at the start of World War I), she and her family locked their apartment in Poland and settled in Crimea. In 1920, the family returned to Warsaw only to discover that their apartment and all their possessions had been handed over to strangers, which forced them to build a new life in Warsaw. Thanks to her victory in Warsaw, she advanced to the next competition, representing Poland in the Miss Europe competition organized in Paris and came in second. This made her the first runner-up for the title. The title caused her to receive attention from suitors and movie studios, but she turned them all down, returning instead to her job at the Bank.

Espionage agent On 5 January 1930, in St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw, she married attorney Leon Śliwiński, a widower raising his only child alone. where she worked for the Polish Government in Exile.

After her husband's death in 1971, she returned to France and settled in Aix-en-Provence, where she died at 93 on 1 March 2001. She was buried in the Montmorency cemetery.

Selected honors On 19 February 1951, aboard the British ship HMS Liverpool, in the port of Casablanca, she received the King's Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom (established by the President of the Republic of Poland in exile for soldiers of the Polish Army and members of the resistance movement). Newspaper coverage of the event resulted in the headline: Władysława Śliwińska – heroine of the Resistance Movement.

In Paris on 10 June 1986, she received the Legion of Honour and the pension allocated to those with this distinction. Other decorations included the Gold Cross of Merit with Swords, the French Croix de Guerre and the Médaille en Vermeil.