Jadwiga Pilsudska-Jaraczewska, the younger daughter of Marshal Jozef Pilsudski died on 16th November 2014, aged 94

Jadwiga Piłsudska-Jaraczewska at the Jozef Pilsudski Institute in 1989

Jadwiga Pilsudska-Jaraczewska, who has died aged 94, was the younger daughter of the pre-war Polish leader and military hero Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. After the German invasion in 1939, she fled to Britain, where she served as a military pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary.

After the war, the Pilsudski Family remained in political exile in Britain. For some time Jadwiga worked as an architect in the urban and regional planning department of London County Council, before she and her husband founded a small company producing lamps and furniture of her own design.

She never took British citizenship, instead using a Nansen passport (for political refugees), pending the day when she could resume full Polish citizenship.

After the fall of communism in 1990, Jadwiga, her husband and sister returned to Poland and settled in Warsaw.

Jadwiga Pilsudska-Jaraczewska was awarded the Polish Bronze Cross of Merit with Swords for her wartime service in the ATA and in 2008 she was presented with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the Polish president Lech Kaczynski.

2014-11-17

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