Joseph Dubicki, Journalist

Jozef was the son of Michal and Konstancja from Folwark Cieletniki, and brother of Apolonia, Antoni, Leon, Michal, and Piotr, all born in Poland. He lived with his uncle Aleksander Dubicki (professor of mathematics) in Wilno until WWII broke out and he was deported to Siberia. He was able to leave the Soviet POW camp in the USSR with General Wladyslaw Anders's Army. He was a war correspondent with the Polish II Corps under British Command in Palestine. He lost his youngest brother Piotr, who was killed by the German Nazis at Monte Cassino (and is buried there). After the war, he was relocated to England, where he married Halina Bortkiewicz, whose family background and history of exile was very similar to his. They emigrated to the U.S., to New York City, where they had one child, a daughter, Irene (Irunia) Dubicka, born in Manhattan in 1951. He worked as a journalist and Brooklyn correspondent for the Nowy Swiat and then the Nowy Dziennik newspapers in Manhattan. He returned to Poland in ~1974 for a tearful reunion to visit his family. A fiery anti-Communist activist, he was often compared to the Roman speaker Cato. He died supporting Solidarnosc through martial law in Poland but did not live to witness Lech Walesa's being elected President or Poland's regaining its independence, which had been his life's mission and his avocation. He also did not live to see his grandson, Conrad Morawski, born a week after his funeral.