Karol Wilhelm Zalewski

   Polish phytopathologist, he was working with plant diseases.

   On September 16 1919, the Polish Far Eastern Children Rescue Committee was established in Władywostok, and its goal was to find Polish orphans in Siberia who found themselves in a dramatic situation after the outbreak of the Bolshevik revolution. Soon after, they were joined by Karol Zalewski, who later became a professor of phytopathology. During this period, between July 1920 and January 1922, the Polish Children’s Rescue Committee of the Far East saved 877 children.

   On April 2 1919, Karol Zaleski became a corporal and he created the Polish Scouting Section at the Polish War Committee and he appointed himself as headmaster. He became there the editor-in-chief of the magazine(bi-weekly) “Polish Scout in Siberia”, which was published in total 5 copies from May 3 to September 1919.

    Karol Zalewski entered the headquarters of the scout camp for boys and girls in Nikolaevsk and he traveled to the Far East conducting educational activities among others in Vladivostok. There, he gave speeches and founded new scout teams. He was organizing summer camps and even also instructor courses.

    From 1920, in the independent Second Polish Republic, Karol Zalewski was studying Polish philology at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv and he was also an assistant at the Lviv Polytechnic. In 1921, he moved to Poznań and he started working at the Department of General Botany and Phytopathology at the Faculty of Agro-Forestry at the University of Poznań. At that time he lived at 5 Śląska Street in Poznań in Poland.

    He was also a member of the Polish Botanical Society, and also of the Poznań Society of Friends of Sciences, the Polish Society of Naturalists of Nicolaus Copernicus. He was closely associated with his scientific major. And he was also famous as the author of many research and experimental works in the field of phytopathology, mycology, and protection of plants from diseases.

    He died on July 19, 1969 and his grave is in Poznań at the cemetery of St. Jan Vianney.