Date of Birth: 
About Władysław Ossowski
- Wladyslaw Ossowski (born November 5, 1925 in the village of Iwaszkowce near Turka, Poland, died August 5, 2000 in Legnica), was a Polish boyscout and member of the White Couriers. Using pseudonyms Maly Wladzio, Smyk, and Pitolcio Ossowski, as a 14-year-old boy, began leading Polish escapees from Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland.
- Between late 1939 and mid-1940, Ossowski, together with a group of Polish scouts mostly from Lwow, led scores of people across Soviet-Hungarian border (see: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) in the Eastern Carpathians.
- He would lead to Budapest those Poles who wanted to escape Soviet occupation.
- From Hungary, he would bring newspapers and directives of General Wladyslaw Sikorski.
- Ossowski, who was born and raised in the borderland area (before the war, there had been the Polish - Czechoslovakian border), used his knowledge and skills. On May 8, 1940, Ossowski was arrested in a house in the village of Komarniki, on the way to Hungary.
- At first, he was transported to a military prison in Drohobycz, but the trial of the whole group of couriers took place in Lwow.
- Ossowski was sentenced to death, but due to his young age (14 at the time), the sentence was changed into 30 years of hard labor.
- He was taken to a Gulag in Siberia and his nationality was changed from Polish to Ukrainian, which made it impossible for him to return to Poland in latter years.
- Ossowski was released in 1955 and settled in Krasnoyarsk.
- In the following years, he was arrested multiple times and his adventures were described in a book written by Marek Celt.
- Despite living in Soviet Union for several decades, he never forgot the Balak_jargon of the Polish language. In 1991 Ossowski and his family were accidentally found and next year they returned to Poland, after 52 years spent in Siberia.
- At first he settled in Szczecin, where he tried to run a pizzeria, given to him by a generous person.
- He frequently met local boyscouts, telling them about his adventures.
- Some time in late 1990s, Ossowski moved to Legnica, where he died.
Read more at Wikipedia